Recovery
by broncoboy13
Summary: Everyone travels a dark path or two in their lives. All that matters is that there is someone to lead you off of it.
1. Prologue

**A/N: Hello, everybody! I hope you enjoyed Weathering the Storm! I loved writing it! Now… I'm back. My two most recent stories have been Cori's. And guess what. This one's a Cori, too. Why wouldn't it be?! Cat and Tori are absolutely perfect for each other! No one tell me any different! UNDERSTAND?! Ahem. Excuse me. What I meant to say was: without further delay, here is my next story. Enjoy it.**

**This story will take place five years after graduation from Hollywood Arts.**

I don't remember anything. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I don't know how I got here. It's like one of those times when you were little and you fell asleep on your parents, but when you were out, they put you in your bed without you remembering it. Does that make any sense? It does to me. Get over it.

All I know is I'm looking up at a white ceiling with a bunch of white walls around me. My vision is blurred. Am I delirious? How could I know if I'm delirious if I'm delirious?

All the noise around me is muffled. It feels like I have a set of plugs stuck in my ears. I'm looking around at the people beside me. They look like they're running. But I know I'm not. I'm actually lying down. What's going on?

I'm suddenly able to make out just what they're saying. Someone with a very deep voice is yelling at someone. "Okay, we have a car accident victim here! She's losing a little bit of blood! We need to get a sample and get the right kind of blood to give her. Get moving!"

Oh. I'm losing blood. That sounds wonderful.

"We have multiple small lacerations on the legs and face and a large laceration on the stomach. I've detected a broken collarbone and a three fractured vertebra. We need to get her lacerations taken care of and then we need to get an IV going for her. I need something with Calcium and Vitamin D supplements." A nurse yells.

Well shit. I'm losing blood. Got a bunch of cuts in multiple places. Broken bones. I love my life.

"Okay, sweetie." A rather handsome male doctor says. "We're going to move you from the stretcher to the bed now. Okay? Can you shake your head for me?" I do, but barely.

"Alright, this may hurt a little." They move me quick. What comes out of my mouth was so loud that the people all the way across the city of Los Angeles could've heard me. The pain is beyond unreal. I'd never felt anything like it.

"Did we get that blood test back?!"

"O negative!"

"Someone needs to get me some O negative blood, stat! We don't have a whole lot of time left!" The doctor says.

I muster up enough strength to raise my arm to tug on the doctor's sleeve. He turns around fast. His face is full of shock. Apparently he didn't think I was strong enough to communicate. And I'm really not.

He leans down close to me. "What is it, sweetheart?"

"Am I… am I… going to die?" I ask, weakly.

He smiles slightly and shakes his head. "No. You're not going to die. We're going to make sure of it. You've lost a little blood, but when we get the replacement in, which should be in a minute or two, you'll be just fine. Okay?"

I manage to smile amidst the pain I'm in.

"Now, we're going to put you under for a minute. But don't worry. You're going to wake up. I promise. Just stay strong and dream about something happy."

Yeah, this is scary. But I have enough trust in my faith that I'm going to wake up.

They place the mask over my face and I begin to feel sleepy. My eyes become heavy and my vision darkens. The last thing I see or hear is a little splash of red and a high pitched voice.

(LINE BREAK)

I don't even feel like I was put under. I feel like I was taking a nap, really. That's how fast it was. I'm sure I was under for most of the rest of the night and some of the day. But it doesn't feel like it.

I can hear the monitor that shows my vital signs beeping up a storm beside me and it's irritating me. Maybe irritated is the wrong word. Annoyed, maybe. Come on, you can't blame a girl for being grouchy when she wakes up from an undetermined amount of hours or days of unconsciousness.

Good lord, make it stop. It's the most annoying thing in the world.

But as you would expect, it doesn't.

"Somebody shut this damn thing up!" I scream.

A nurse runs quickly into my room. She looks at me with wide eyes. She looks scared or something. She tries to say something but she begins to stutter and trip over her words.

"What's your deal?" I ask, sharply.

She exits the room.

What the hell was that about? People confuse me. At least she shut the door. I want my privacy. But she didn't turn this stupid machine off. Does the hospital not know how to cater to its patients?

Doing my best to drown out the noise, I place a pillow over my ears and shut my eyes again. Ahh… there it is. Quiet. Sure, I've kind of had my fill of all the quiet, but that noise wants to make me shove forks into my ears. It's that bad.

Just as I become relaxed, I hear footsteps come into the room. They're obviously wearing heels because I can hear the clicking through my pillow. I guess it's just impossible to have voluntary silence. Apparently you can only be forced to sleep now.

Whoever is in the room grabs my foot and shakes it, trying to get my attention, supposedly. I reluctantly remove the pillow from my ears and open my eyes.

Oh my god.

"Hi, Tori. How are you?" Cat Valentine stands before me, holding a clipboard, and smiling ear to ear just as she did the last time I saw her. Five years doesn't change much.

"Um, I… I guess I've been better. I mean, there's a lot of new blood in me and I have a few broken parts." I say. "So you could say I've been better."

"Yeah, I have you're little chart here with a bunch of big stuff on it." She chuckles. I know she's trying to make me feel better and all, but I don't think it's working.

She sees me not laughing and quickly stops it. She clears her throat and continues talking.

"It's been quite a while. I just wish we were seeing each other under better circumstances." She walks over to my bedside and sits down beside me. She doesn't look down at the clipboard and doesn't look up.

"Do you need something, Cat?" I ask, probably sounding bitter.

She just looks at her paper. "Tori, you know why you're here, right?"

"Yeah, I got in a car crash. Does it not say that in your little report?"

"It does. I was just making sure you knew exactly what was going on. Do you? Do you know EXACTLY what's going on?" She asks.

"Okay, by the way you're approaching me about this, there's something going on that I don't know about. And I'd really appreciate it if you'd tell me just what the hell it is." I say, sternly.

"Do you have any recollection of anything after the crash? What anyone said to you after they pulled you out of the car?"

"Just the five minutes between the time I got to the hospital to the time I was put to sleep. Why do you ask? What happened, Cat?"

She places a hand over her eyes and takes a deep breath.

"I don't want you to worry yet because you're just waking up from being unconscious for a good three days… but… when we ran your blood through the test, it came back almost double California's maximum BAC level."

"Okay, so I get a DUI and my license revoked. Big deal." I shrug my shoulders.

"You didn't let me finish." She looks me directly in the eye. "Tori, the man woman you hit last night was named Cheryl Tomlinson. She died, Tori."

I completely freeze. Did she say what I think she just said? I killed someone? Are you serious?

"I killed someone?" I ask, quietly.

"Yes, you did. And another thing: they're saying because you're BAC was so high, you may be charged with Intoxication Manslaughter. That could be up to a year in prison."

My mind went blank. Completely blank. I can't believe I did something like this. I killed someone. I depraved someone of the rest of their life. I took away some of the experiences they could've had. And because I made a stupid choice to get drunk last night, I could be going to prison. How in the world…

I come out of my daze to see Cat staring at me.

"Cat, please tell me you're messing with me. Don't tell me this is real."

She exhales loudly. "I wish I could tell you that. And I'm so sorry, Tori." She says. "But the nurse that just came in here just told me that you were awake. She said she was freaking out and didn't know what to do so she came and got me."

I nod. "Thank you for telling me. I'm sorry that we're talking for the first time in years about this. You're talking to a killer."

You'd think I'd be bawling right now. And believe me, I want to. But there's this little thing called shock that makes you not feel anything. And I can bet every dime I own that I'll be crying my little eyes out soon.

I just can't believe it.

"They want to ask some questions. The police do… do you think you're up for it today?

"Absolutely not. I just woke up and found out that I killed someone. There's no way in the world I'm answering questions."

She nods. "Look, I'm almost constantly here. So if you need to talk to anyone, I'm always here. I know we haven't seen each other in years, but the same rules that applied in High School still apply. My ears are always open."

"Thank you, Cat. I'd just like to be alone, right now. Is that okay?"

"Of course. Just press that button on the wall if you need anything." She leans in, hugs me gently, and gives me one of her trademark kisses on my cheek. She stands up, smiles a small smile, and walks out the door.

It's great to know that after all these years that she still cares about me. And right now, I need all the care I can get. Because I, Tori Vega, killed someone.

**A/N: Okay, so there's the prologue. I hope you guys see as much potential for this story as I do! Thank you for checking it out. I'll try to update as soon as I can.**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Hey, gang. Sorry about the wait. What has it been? A good three months? School is kicking my rear end. But I'm posting this one now, and that's all that matters. So let's see what happens with Tori, Cat, and whoever else will be in this one.**

**Just a fair warning… there are some pretty dark elements coming up. They'll probably be in at least the next three chapters. Brace yourselves.**

**Dreams are in ****_italics._**

"Tori, you have to make a move. The police have been on your case for a week." Cat says, as she fills up my cup with water from a pitcher.

"I know, I know! But I'm scared. I'm scared of what I may say. I'm scared of what they might say. I'm scared of what they may do."

She looks at me with a very confused expression on her face. She's quiet for a moment.

"They just want to ask you some questions. Just some questions."

"Cat, I killed someone. You know what their questions are going to be? They're going to ask, 'Do you want a tight or a loose set of hand cuffs?' or 'would you like to be walked out or forcefully removed?'." I place my hands on my face and take a deep breath.

Cat comes over to my bedside and sits down. She grabs my hand and looks at me in the eyes.

"Maybe they can work something out for you. You never know." She says.

It's been forever. And she still hasn't changed at all. She's the same, happy, bubbly, confident redheaded girl that picked me up on countless occasions. I just think that this may be a bit too heavy for her this time around.

I smile. She really cares and I appreciate it. "Thank you for being confident, Cat. But be honest with me. How many cases of Intoxication Manslaughter have you heard of being tossed out? Be real about this, Cat."

Her happy and encouraging demeanor soon fades away and a sad, lost, and hopeless one appears. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. She looks up, her eyes a little bloodshot. She appears to be trying not to cry.

"Look, I know that we haven't seen each other in a while, but there are just some things that never change, Tori. Your singing style may change. The way you act around people probably changed since the last time I saw you. But one of the things that didn't change is how much I care about my friend. And my desire to be positive doesn't change. So you can try all you want to get me to abandon this subject and leave my quest to be positive about it behind, but I can promise you that it won't make a difference." She looks away from me and takes another deep breath.

"I'm not telling you to not be positive. I'm only asking you to be realistic." I say.

"Positivity isn't real?" She asks.

"In this case, no, because there's nothing positive about this situation. What is positive about death? What is positive about killing someone? I almost died, to boot. What is positive about this entire **fucking** situation?" She jumps back at my sharp tone. My hard facial expression turns to a soft, compassionate one at the sight of her puppy dog eyes showing sadness that I caused.

"I'm sorry. This is just… all… so much to take in at one time. I almost died. Then less than ten minutes after I woke up from a mini coma, I find out that I killed someone. And then these cops are trying to ask me about a crime that I don't even remember anything about. I just…"

Cat scoots closer to me and wraps me up in a hug. God, I missed these. I miss her.

There's a knock on my door. A large man with dark skin walks in with a small woman by his side. He is dressed in a suit and tie while she is in a pant suit. Cat rushes over, trying to push them back.

"You can't be in here. This patient didn't give you permission to come into her room. You have to leave until you get permission." Cat says.

The man says, "We have our permission right here. We've been waiting in that waiting room for a week now and we got tired of it. So we went to a judge and got a warrant saying that we could override what the patient says to do and hold our interrogation now."

Cat's jaw is on the ground and my entire body is shaking like a leaf falling from a tree in the middle of October. The man pulls a chair up right beside me. He looks at me right in the eye and doesn't say a word. The woman sits on the bed on the opposite side of the man.

"My name is Emily Ross. I work for the LAPD in the Intoxication Manslaughter division." The woman says. She has blonde hair and blue eyes. If you didn't hear her speak, you would think she was the prettiest thing and the sweetest person in the entire world. But the masculinity of her voice quickly sent those thoughts into the ground.

"My name is Bernard Borland. I work in the same division." He says.

I look back in forth between them and smile. Why, I don't know. I guess I was just trying to break some of the tension. "So which one of you is the good cop and which one is the bad cop?" I laugh, awkwardly. Again, I look back and forth between them. Apparently they aren't very amused.

"Let me guess. You're both bad cops, aren't you?" Again, they say nothing. "Yeah, that sounds about right. That's my luck."

The woman reaches down into a satchel and brings out a notepad and a pen. She starts writing down my information and begins the interrogation.

"Okay, Miss Vega. Why don't we start off with what you remember of the night that Cheryl Tomlinson died? Do you remember where you became intoxicated?" The woman asks.

"I was at my house, I want to say." I nervously utter the words that I never wanted to say.

"Uh, Tori…?" Cat starts.

The two police officers look at Cat who is still sitting in the room.

"We're going to need you to leave the room, ma'am." Borland says.

"Oh, you see, I'm her personal nurse, so I'm required to…" Borland cuts her off.

"I don't think you heard me correctly. I asked you to leave the room. But I'll ask again. Please leave the room, ma'am." Borland repeats himself.

Cat still doesn't get the message. Borland motions for Ross to escort her out of the hospital room. Ross forcefully takes her and throws her out of the room.

"Hey!" I yell at the woman. She turns around. "You can't do that to her." She doesn't say anything. She just returns to her seat. She picks the notepad up along with the pen and Borland pulls out a tape recorder.

"This has to move along." He says. "You claim to have been at your house on the night of Cheryl Tomlinson's death, correct?"

"That's right." I answer. These people are scary. It's like the only emotion they know how to show is… you know, they really don't show an emotion. They're kind of just… there.

"Miss Vega, do you have any history with major drinking? Do you think you're an alcoholic?" Agent Ross asks.

You're kidding me. "No, absolutely not. That is completely insane. Why in the world would you think I was an alcoholic? That's ridiculous." I know my face is getting red because I can feel heat in my cheeks. I don't even care.

"You need to calm down. We're not trying to instigate anything." Borland says, putting his hands up. "We're just covering all possible scenarios. It's okay."

Oh, so now he's trying to be comforting and easy on me.

"No, I am not an alcoholic." I say, trying to remain calm. I guess they didn't pick up on how much I was trying to tone it down. Because I was hot. Like I was beyond pissed. Maybe it was me being still a little groggy after being unconscious for all that time, but that's just a question you don't ask someone. I mean, even if someone is an alcoholic, you don't just ask them if they think they are.

"Miss Vega, you're obviously not wanting to corporate, so…" Ross says.

"Oh, I'm cooperating. But you both are irritating the shit out of me. You show zero emotion. And you say you're people who work in the intoxication manslaughter division. You should know how to conduct these interrogations without using fear as an approach. I killed someone and I don't even remember it. And you're not even being gentle."

"You need to understand something. You are a criminal. You are a murderer. You don't deserve to be treated like a person who littered does."

"I am NOT a murder. Murder is clearly defined as a killing with premeditation or intent. What I did is considered to be manslaughter. Manslaughter, as you very well should know, is when someone kills another person when they are intoxicated in any way. You could be drunk, high… anything. It is when you have lost control of your senses. I couldn't have known what I was doing at the level of drunkenness I was at last night. So don't call me a murderer."

For the first time in the entire interrogation, they're both silent.

Borland stands up and buttons up his suit jacket. "Ross, let's go. We need to discuss some things back at the station."

"But, boss…" She says.

"Now, Emily." He says, sternly.

She eyes me for a while. And then she stands up and walks toward the door to my room with Agent Borland. I call her name and she turns back around.

"Could you send my nurse back in here?" She nods. And walks out. I scream, "And don't throw her in here, please!"

I can't believe that all just happened. Cat walks back in. She just stands there and looks at me. She doesn't exactly show an emotion. She's just… standing there, almost like a statue. Why isn't she saying anything?

She begins to play with her long red locks of hair and begins pacing around the room, again, saying absolutely nothing. Many times, her mouth begins to open as if she's about to say something, but she stops herself each time. She does it one more time and I feel the need say something.

"Cat, are you just going to stand there and open your mouth only to close it again? Or are you actually going to say something?" I snap a little. Her facial expression changes from confused and stumped to one of sadness.

Again, her mouth open and shuts again. She sits down in a chair at the foot of my bed and crosses her legs.

"Shouldn't you be doing something else besides sitting here, wasting your time, and not saying a damn word?"

"For your information, I'm off duty. I'm doing this without any pay. So I'm sorry if I'm sitting in here with you. I'm trying to take care of you. Try being a little more appreciative. I don't have to do this." She says with a serious look on her face.

I don't say a word to her. All I do is pull my covers up and turn away from her. She exhales loudly, but I don't hear her get up and leave the room.

I understand that what I'm doing to her is selfish. I'm basically shutting down. I'm not myself right now. But how could I be? I'm going through so much right now. I killed someone, for one thing. Then I wake up from a coma-like thing to Cat telling me the news, and then I've got these agents badgering me with questions.

Oh, what use is this? I'm drowning in all of this crap and I'm throwing away the only person who actually cares and actually wants to help me through it. But what am I doing right now? Not doing anything about it. I'm not doing one damn thing to fix it.

What have I gotten myself into? The only thing I can do at this point is go to sleep, I guess. I close my eyes and do my best to get some good sleep.

* * *

_"__Don't you take that tone of voice with me." My mom snaps._

_Slurring my words, I say, "You don't get to tell me what to do." I take another drink of the bottle of whatever it is I'm drinking. "Apparently it's okay for you to take a rude tone with me. So why can't I take one with you?" I ask, loudly._

_"__Oh, you think so? Why don't you say that to your father? See what he has to say about you and your little episode here." Her finger is pointing in my face and I slap it out of my way._

_"__Good, get him down here. Do you think I give one shit? We've gone through this same routine over different stuff since I was seven years old!"_

_She heads towards the staircase. "DAVID!" She screams. "Get down here and talk some sense into your daughter. She's gone crazy."_

_A groan comes from upstairs and my dad comes slowly down the stairs. As soon as he looks at me, I take another quick swig from the bottle and let out a manly burp._

_"__What's he going to do? Slap me again? That's not scary anymore." I say, with a small laugh. "At least come up with some new stuff. What's up, Mom? Can't teach an old dog any new tricks?"_

_As soon as I make that comment, a stinging pain comes at my left cheek. My dad backhanded my face. I'm sure some of the pain I should've felt was taken away due to the amount of alcohol that was in my system. But damn, that hurt bad._

_Nevertheless, I stand up and face him again. "That's not new. What else you got? Give me some new stuff."_

_"__Daddy?" Trina is at the base of the steps._

_"__Go back upstairs, Trina." Dad says, sternly._

_"__But…" She starts to come back with a response._

_"__GO!" He screams._

_She jumps back at the tenacity in his voice. Before she turns around, I can see the tears in her eyes and the pain that's hidden inside her soul. I can hear her thoughts right now. She wants to help me, but she doesn't know how. She feels helpless, and secretly, even though I'm drunk, so am I. I can't let him know that, though._

_Hell, if I'm going to be beaten to death, why not go out fighting, right? I give my dad a big slap across the face with a smirk on mine. Now, there's no doubt that if I was sober, there'd be no way I'd be doing this, and I know it. But at this point in time, I've just had enough._

_He was hurting. I hurt him. Soon after he realized exactly what was going on, he looked up and his eyes were as wide as they've ever been before. He took his fist back, and this time, punched me right in the jaw. _

_This time, I'm glad I'm drunk because if I wasn't, there'd be enough pain to go around to everyone in the entire state of California. I stayed on the ground this time._

_"__Tori, aren't you tired of the same old song and dance? I hit you, you hit me, I hit you again, and you stay down. Because I sure am. I'm tired of going through this bullshit. Why do you constantly provoke those around you to become violent?" Dad asks._

_"__Look around you. Look around you and see who is in the room with you. Think about who is in the house with you. Mom isn't violent. She just doesn't care if you are. In fact, she probably prefers that you are because she doesn't have to be if you do all the dirty work. Trina isn't violent. She can't even kill a damn spider. There are two violent people in my life. One being Jade West, and guess who the other one is. You, Dad. You're the only violent person in our family."_

_He snickers. He looks back at my mom, but her face is as neutral as it could possibly be. It's almost like she doesn't care that anything is happening._

_"__There's no point to this." He throws his arms in the air. "I don't know why I'm wasting my time on you. You're useless! Why am I wasting energy hitting you and trying to beat this bad stuff out of you when all you do is forget about it?"_

_"__Don't try to pin this on me! None of this is my fault. And be honest with yourself. You do this to me because you enjoy it. You enjoy it and you know it. You get pleasure out of doing this to me." He laughs again. "Don't lie, you unimaginable bastard. You enjoy this, because you get to take all of your anger down inside on me. And you think there's an excuse to do it because I'm fucking up! Don't you?"_

_"__Shut up." He says, running a hand through his hair._

_"__Answer me."_

_"__Shut… your mouth."_

_"__Answer me, you son of a bitch!"_

_And before I can have another thought, he's on top of me, slapping my face and throwing a few punches while he's at it. It's getting to the point where I can't really feel it now. I'm just lying there and taking every blow._

And then, magically, I wake up with a start.

I'm panting and sweating.

"Cat!" I scream. "Cat, where are you?!"

I hear something from the corner of the room moving, and I see Cat trying to get out from under the covers. She stands up and runs to my bedside. It's funny how much she still cares even after how I treated her after the interrogation. She grabs my hand.

"Tori, what's wrong?" She asks, almost out of breath.

I'm actually crying at this point. She takes me into her arms as I try to control my breathing. She strokes the back of my head and softly whispers sweet nothings into my ear. These slowly make my breathing slow down.

"Tori, it's okay. Talk to me. Just talk to me. Breathe and talk to me. It's okay." She coos. Why is her voice so soothing?

"I… I… I… remember… some… something." I stutter through the crying.

"What is it? What did you remember, Tori?" She asks. She put her hands on my shoulders and starts rubbing them softly.

"Cat, this is going to be extremely hard to talk about for me." I say. "Is there any way that I could persuade you to take me down to the cafeteria to get a cup of coffee and some breakfast?"

She takes a look at her phone and sees that the time is five o'clock in the morning. It's still dark outside and the room is totally dark except for the light of Cat's phone shining on her face.

"Yeah, I guess we can. I don't know if I have enough money for breakfast and coffee for the both of us, though. We can go…" She says, but I cut her off.

"Well, you don't have to pay for me. They said that patient eat free this week. So this was the right time to get in a car crash, wasn't it?" I laugh.

She gives me a 'what the hell' type of look.

"I'm sorry… I know I shouldn't be joking about that. Especially after someone died and also after I had this awful revelation. Let's head down to the cafeteria and I'll tell you about it, okay?"

She nods and helps me out of the bed. It's almost hard to walk with how long I've been in this bed.

"Oh, god, I'm so weak." I say. As she's helping me out the door, I look up at her and say, "Will you carry me there, please?"

"Nope. You're walking, sister."

* * *

Cat and I are in the cafeteria and in line getting our breakfast. And surprisingly, for a hospital, they have some pretty good grub. And you would think that a hospital cafeteria would have a much more healthy selection of food.

Ha. No. They cook they're entire breakfast menu with lard. And as folks from Alabama would say, that's what makes the food taste how it tastes. God, my stomach is going to hurt later from all this grease. Pray for me.

"Okay, pretty lady." The cashier says. "That'll be five dollars and ninety-eight cents."

Cat smiles and goes into her small wallet type thing she carries around her wrist. She pulls out a ten dollar bill and hands it to the lady.

"There you go, Pam." She smiles. Okay, I guess she knows this person.

"Enjoy the food, Cat. Hope to see you tomorrow. We'll have another nice, hot pot of coffee made up fresh for you if you feel like grabbing a cup." Pam says.

"Well, you know I will. I've done the same thing every morning for the past two years!" Pam smiles at Cat's happy tone and waves at her as we walk away from her and head for a table.

We sit down and Cat gets situated. She puts a couple of sugars in her coffee, followed by a creamer. Then she stirs it and takes her first sip. We sit in silence for a moment.

Cat takes a deep breath. "Are you going to fill me in on what's going on with you or not? Because, Tori, I'm really starting to get worried about you." She says. "And not about everything that's happening with the whole Cheryl Tomlinson situation, but you in general."

I laugh a little. "Cat, I haven't done anything to give you that idea. Have you been talking to Jade again? Has she been telling you I've gone insane?"

"No, I promise, she hasn't. But still…" She lowers her head and stares at her coffee. I mean, she has reason to be worried. She has reason to be worried about the fact that I may be going to prison for committing a crime that I don't even remember committing. And maybe she even has reason to worry about my emotional integrity. But there's no way she just have this incessant worry about me as a person.

I'm perfectly fine. I'm totally sane. However, I could really see myself having an emotional breakdown if I have another dream like the last one.

Speaking of which…

"So, you ready to tell me about that dream now?" Cat asks.

"Do I have to?"

"You said you would. So yes, you have to." She says.

I exhale loudly and nod my head, signifying that I'm ready to go.

"So… it's a little patchy. I have a feeling I'm missing a few pieces of what really went down." I say. "But I remember everything before I left my house."

She adjusts her position in her chair, her face becoming more and more serious by the second. She nods. "Okay. What happened?"

I close my eyes, trying to remember everything that was going on in the dream. And suddenly, it was almost like I was having the dream all over again. And it was just as bad as the first time. I started to sweat again. And shake.

Cat grabs my hand. "It's okay, Tor. It's okay. I'm here."

"Cat, it's just so… so real."

"That's because it was real. It is real. Just take your time." She says.

I take a deep breath and muster up the courage to begin. "Let me ask you a question, Cat."

"Tori, I want to talk about you. Forget about me for a minute." She puts her hands up, frustrated.

"If you'll let me finish, I'll tell you everything. I'm leading to something." She quiets herself and becomes a listener. "My question is… do you know why these cuts and scratches are on my face? Like, do you really know?"

"Well, yeah. You were in a car crash."

"Right… but it was something else. It was something you'll never be able to guess."

She thinks about it for a minute.

"Have you noticed anything weird about my visitors?" I ask.

"Well, your only visitors were Borland and Ross. That's about the only thing I can think of. What else has been weird to you?"

I look at her for a minute to see if she picks up on what I'm putting out there.

"My parents haven't come in to see me, Cat. Not one time."

She has a confused look on her face. She cocks her head to the side and looks me in the eye with one of her eyebrows raised while the other one stays low.

"In my dream last night…" I pause. This is the hard part to talk about. "…my dad beat me. Like, bad. He kicked the living shit out of me."

"And that's where you got the… from."

"The cuts. Yes, I believe so. I remember, in the dream, that I was completely drunk. I was completely wasted. And I guess I had an attitude with my mom. I really can't remember what it was about. I just remember that I got into it with her."

"So she beat you?" Cat asks.

"No, no, no. She got tired of dealing with it, so she called my dad downstairs to take care of it." I say. "And he sure did."

"I think if I had just apologized and not been drunk, he wouldn't have done any of this."

"Why didn't you apologize?" She asks, quietly, with the chin in the palm of her hand.

"Because fuck him, that's why." I smirk a little bit, proud of myself for coming to terms with the fact that this wasn't entirely my fault.

"I guess the reason I was drunk was because I was having so many problems at home. Maybe I just couldn't take it anymore. So I just went to alcohol." As the statement goes on, I find myself speaking softer and softer.

Cat gets up from her chair at the table and comes over to mine. She wraps her arms around me and holds me tightly. She rubs the back of my head and starts humming some soothing noises.

"Tori, none of this is your fault."

"You do realize that if I hadn't been drinking that she wouldn't be dead right? Cheryl Tomlinson could go back home to her husband and child without any extra stress provided by me. But no, I had to be selfish and try to kill off all of my problems with alcohol."

"Tori, stop blaming yourself. Could you just think about this for a minute? We can get away with this in court! Your dad drove you to drink and emotionally compromised you." Cat says.

"Look, Cat, I appreciate what you're doing. But right now, all I can think about is how I killed a lady who had a life just like me. And I'm sure that when she died, she wasn't running from her problems like I am or was. She had kids. She had a husband. She had a job. And I took her away from all of those things. How can I think about anything else but that?" Cat is right about one thing. I am emotionally compromised. That, or extremely close to it.

"I understand, Tori. I just…"

"No." I cut her off and stand up from my seat. "No, Cat, you don't understand. You don't know what it's like to be on top of the world for one moment and then the next you're at rock bottom and trying to tell yourself that you're not. You don't know what it's like to be beaten half to death by your dad. You just don't. You don't know what it's like to go into a hospital, look up at all the doctors wheeling you into the hospital screaming and asking nurses for things. And when you tell me what it's like to take someone's life and not even remember it… come get me. And we'll talk."

She sits still, stirring her coffee. I stand there waiting for her to say something. She doesn't. I huff and slowly walk away from our table and towards the exit of the cafeteria.

On my way out I hear, "And you don't know what it's like to have someone you care about more than yourself say you don't know how something this serious feels, especially when they do understand it."

I look back at Cat.

"I understand it all."

**A/N: Okay, everybody. I'm happy with this. I know it took me forever to get this out, but hey… it's out now, and that's all that matters.**

**And also, I'd just like to say that if you're a victim of domestic abuse that it's never your fault. Ever. If you ever need help, always go get someone. It's never your fault. Thank you for reading.**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Hey, there. Read this thing I just wrote.**

**Dreams are in ****_italics_****.**

**WARNING: Depiction of abuse is in this chapter. For those who are sensitive to this topic, read at your own discretion. **

"Cat, what do you mean, you understand all of it?" I ask. She did say she understood all of this, right?

She continues to look at her coffee like it's going to run away and can't take her eye off of it for one second. I walk back over towards the table and sit down. She doesn't look up.

"Cat, are you going to answer me?"

She looks up at me. I can see the gears inside her brain turning round and round. Her mouth open like she's about to say something, but then, it shuts. Not this again.

"No. We're not doing this again. Answer me. What do you mean?" I ask, sternly. "Cat, tell me."

"I shouldn't have said anything. Just forget it." She gets up from the table and walks out of the cafeteria. Being as weak as I am, I do my best to chase after her. I do end up catching her, but not because I actually ran and caught her. She just… stopped walking.

Again, she's not saying a word. I turn her around and her eyes are filling up with tears. Doing my best to understand what's going on inside that cute little redhead's mind. One of the tears roll down her cheek and I wipe it away with my thumb.

"What's going on, Cat?" I ask again.

She closes her eyes and turns away. An elevator door opens and I guide her into it.

We've got a minute because my room is on the top floor. So I pull her into a hug. Like she'd done for me so many times while we were in High School, I do my best to give her comfort and a shoulder to cry on. I run my hand through her hair and squeeze her tightly, giving her every ounce of love I can give her.

She pulls herself out of the hug and takes a deep breath. She wipes her eyes and looks straight at me.

"Look…" She starts. It's almost like she's having to fight to keep her composure. "There is so much about me that you don't know. Like, you have no idea. No, there's no way I could understand taking someone's life and not being able to remember it, but…" And there's the silence again.

"But what? What are you trying to say?"

The elevator door opens and she quickly runs out and towards my room. Again, I try to chase her, but I soon remember that I've been in bed for God knows how long and I'm pitifully weak.

By the time I'm able to reach my room, she's already in there and sitting in a chair, watching the sunrise. I walk over to her and sit on the window sill.

"Cat, you have to tell me what's going on." I say.

She continues to watch the sunrise. She takes _another _deep breath.

"Tori, I want you to get some sleep. I have to take care of some stuff real fast. I can't talk to you about it right now, but I'll run you through everything when I get back. And I shouldn't be too long. I promise." She says.

Yeah, no way that's happening.

"Uh, I don't think so. Not as long as I know that something is going on that's bothering you. There's no way. You'll have to sedate me." I cross my arms and look at her with a cocky face. It's funny how I actually think I did something.

"You know that I have the power to do that. I'm a nurse, remember? I can sedate you at any given time." She gives me a slight smirk, almost a devious one.

I huff and go crawl into bed. I feel like I'm five, being sent to bed like this. But if we're talking about how I feel physically… I'd say… around seventy-three years old. I feel like shit.

"Now stay there and rest. You need it, Tor." She gives me a soft smile. I return it, even though I'm not a happy camper about being put to bed by someone besides my mother. She comes over to me and gives me a hug.

"I'm really glad we're getting to know each other again." She leans back a little. "I just wish it was under more positive circumstances."

I nod and lower my head. But she takes my chin and points my face in the direction of hers. "You're going to get through this one way or another. I promise." She smiles. Same old positive Cat. "Have I ever broken a promise to you?"

When she says that, I can't help but feel happy. Because she actually hasn't broken a promise to me. Ever. And if she says that I'm going to get through this, then damn it, I'm going to and that's all there is to it.

"Thank you, Cat." I say. And I mean it. It's not every day you can just not talk to someone for years and just resume your friendship instantly. But somehow, it happened with us. I guess you can say we're best friends. And you know it's the truth because of how close we can get after all this time.

She smiles again, stands up, and walks out of the room. And for some reason, when she's gone, I get a little sad. It's not like I'm going to throw a huge fit, but it feels like there's a little bit less happiness in my room. I miss her.

Since she's gone, however, it gives me a little time to think. She really is right, though. Ever since I was little, I have always done my best to fight through any adversity I've faced. Well… except for that one time when I had Beck do that stunt for me. He looked so good when he ran away. That's beside the point.

I feel like now that Cat is back, I'll be able to fight through this. Adversity can't beat Tori Vega.

(Line Break)

_I'm lying on the ground and the stinging pain is still in my cheek. And my nose. And my jaw. I guess my face in general._

_He's standing above me and screaming obscenities, I'm sure. But I can't hear them. The pain is immense. The alcohol and adrenalin can't help me anymore. My dad isn't a small guy. Everyone knows how hard he could punch or slap. They may not know what it's like firsthand like I do, but they can assume._

_I look around the room to see if there's anyone around to help me. There's my mom. But what good is she in all this? _

_In this moment, I see my mom being like Mr. Burns from the The Simpsons. These people came to him for help because they had nowhere else to go. But instead of helping them, he released the dogs on them. That's how I see my mom. If I asked her to help me, I feel like she'd just make my dad beat the shit out of me even more._

_"__Answer me!" I suddenly hear everything clearly. The pain in my face had gone down because he was taking a break from hitting me, but it certainly didn't go away completely._

_"__I said answer me!" Another slap across the face. He grabs my hair and pulls me off the ground. He grits his teeth and looks me dead in the eye. "You've got one more time to not answer me. I'll ask you one more time. Why don't you see that you're hurting everyone you know by doing what you're doing? You're hurting everyone around you because you want to go out and have some fun." I don't answer him again. I'm simply too weak._

_He goes over to the bottle of alcohol I'd previously been drinking. He smashes it on the ground. The crash is so loud it makes me go temporarily deaf in my left ear. I see him walking towards me with a medium sized piece of glass in his hand. Kinda scared now. Not gonna lie. I'm really scared._

_"__What… what are… what are you going to do with… that?" I question, weakly. He almost laughs._

_"__So now you feel like talking?" He throws the piece of glass down, apparently deciding he doesn't need it, and gets down close to me and whispers in my ear. "You aren't worth this. I'm wasting my time doing this."_

_"__If I'm not worth it, why are you doing this to me? Just leave me alone." I cry._

_"__Do you think I want to do this, Tori?"_

_"__Yes, actually, I do. I think you have an extreme anger problem. And I'm the easiest one to take it out on. There are a million excuses you can come up with as to why I have these scratches and bruises on my face. If you took your anger out on Mom, people would start to murmur. You'd be known as the wife-beater of Hollywood." I say. By looking at him, I can tell he knows that I'm right. _

_"__And you don't beat on Trina because she's stronger than me. She'll put up more of a fight. Plus, she's the oldest and she's the favorite, for some reason. So who does that leave? Little old me. That's who."_

_He takes his eyes off of me and looks off into space. The he glances back at me and then at my mom. She shrugs her shoulders as if she doesn't care that her baby girl has been beaten to a pulp and that it's her husband that's doing the damage. Thank you, Mr. Burns._

_His eyes return to me. "I hope you appreciate what I'm doing for you. I'm spending all this unnecessary time beating this stuff out of you, trying to help you be a better person. And you just throw it all away. It makes me want to give up."_

_"__You actually think this helps me?" I laugh, hysterically. "This is the complete opposite of help. If anything, you're making me regress. By beating me like this, you're permanently scarring your daughter. When I'm older, this will be the thing that hinders me the most." I say. Then I remember another thing he just said… "And trust me… what you're doing… I'll never appreciate it. Ever." Ignore all this, Tori. It's not your fault. It is NOT your fault._

_I see rage in his eyes. He stands up, growls, and grabs my hair. He pulls me up to where I'm on my feet. Then he pulls me towards the door. He gives me one last unbelievably powerful slap that causes me to stumble backwards and hit my head on the outside wall._

_"__Don't bother coming back." Those are the last words he spoke to me._

And just like that, I'm awake again. I'm back in reality. I must not have been asleep for very long because Cat still isn't back. And I really need her right now. This is exactly the way I felt after the first dream. I'm sweating, breathing heavily, and I'm scared to death.

I buzz for the nurse. At this point, I'm starting to cry. Maybe I should be crying. Maybe I shouldn't. But I am, regardless.

Soon enough, the nurse comes in my room. She sees me crying and instantly, she's asking what I need. I try to tell her, but I'm starting to hyperventilate. For some reason, this dream got me worse than the last one.

"Sweetheart, you need to slow down and take some deep breaths." The nurse says. "Take deep breaths and try to calm down."

I manage to slow my breathing down, finally. However, I'm still panicking because Cat isn't here.

"What do you need?" She asks.

I close my eyes and compose myself for as long as it takes to say what I need to say.

"I need… Cat Valentine. Get Cat Valentine." I say.

The nurse nods and rushes out of the room, running faster than I've seen anyone run in a long time.

I lay my head down on my pillow, still trying to control my breathing. In my mind, I'm telling myself "I know Cat will be here soon. She'll be here soon." My heart is still racing.

But just when I need her, I see the little red head sprinting into my room. She hurries to my bedside and gives me a big hug. I hug her back, but I may be hugging her too tightly. I doubt she cares, so I don't loosen up.

"Tori, what's going on?" She asks. "Please, tell me so I can help. What's the problem?"

I lean back away from her, again resting my head on my pillow.

"I had another dream." I say.

Her eyes go wide. "What happened, Tori? What happened in the dream?"

"It was… it was my…" I can't even say it. Why is this dream so different from the first?

"It was… your dad?" She asks. I nod, trying to suppress the sobs.

"Do you want to tell me about it?" She asks. I shake my head no. "I've got all day. I can call out early and take some personal time if that's what you need from me."

I look at her and how sympathetic she feels right now. She really cares about me. And that means an incredible amount to me.

"Do you mind doing that? I really need you right now." I cry.

"No, not at all. I can take as many days as you need. I'm with you on this, Tori." She says. "I'm totally, one hundred percent invested in your recovery."

I can't help but smile. "Cat?"

"Yes, Tori?"

"Can I ask one more big favor out of you?"

"Of course."

"Well, it's actually two big favors." I look away, not wanting to hear her say no.

"Alright, what are they?" That was easy enough.

"I… I hate to ask this of you, but… is there any way you could pull some strings to let me be released into your care, with you being a nurse and all?" I ask, hoping to hear her say yes.

"Of course I can do that. They're just keeping you here for observation. And I can just take care of that on my own."

"Thank you so much, Cat. You have no idea how much I appreciate that." We exchange smiles, but then I remember the question I'm really concerned about her saying no to. I clear my throat and prepare to speak.

"Now… my other request; I'd like to know if there is any way I could possibly… maybe… stay with you for a little while… maybe?" I'm not too confident in this one.

I can tell she thinks my request is a bit- I wouldn't say demanding- but demanding because she kind of snickers at it. Like that 'are you serious' kind of snicker.

I soon change my mind and take back the request but she stops me before I can even finish my sentence.

"Yes, that's no problem at all. You can stay with me as long as you need to."

"Are you sure? Because I don't want to intrude. I can just find like a hotel or something. Maybe I can stay with Andre. I'm sure he wouldn't mind." I say.

"But he's all the way in Santa Clara. I'm right down the street. You can stay with me, Tor. Really it's no problem." She smiles. I smile back. "I'll just go and fill out some release forms. I'll need to come back for a signature, but that's about it. Sound good?"

"Sounds great."

Son of a bitch. My luck is turning.

"And I promise that I'll tell you about the dream. But we're going to have to stop by the liquor store to get some wine. It'll be a long night." I say.

She nods and gives me another hug. I missed these. Her love-filled hugs. I don't know how I ever lived without them. It's like she was put back in my life at just the right moment.

After a bunch of signatures and a bunch of preparation to leave the hospital, Cat and I finally got out of the hospital and we on our way to Cat's house.

"Glad to be out?"

"Oh my God, yes, I'm beyond glad to be out. I almost forgot what it looked like in the outside world. It's scary." I joke. I earn a small chuckle from her.

"Well is there anything you really want to do? I don't want this day to be stressful for you. You had a long one yesterday."

Apparently she's forgotten about what I have to talk to her about later tonight. I'll ask her about it in a minute, I guess. I'm actually dreading it. I really don't feel like getting stressed out.

"To be honest with you, Cat, at the moment, I really don't want to do anything except get home and rest. I'm just so mentally exhausted." I say. She stays quiet for a moment.

"Oh." She says, eyes fixed on the road. "Well… I may have a small surprise for you when we get home. You may or may not want to deal with it. And if you don't, we'll just mess with it another time."

"What did you do?" I ask.

"Um. Nothing. Just… nothing."

"Well, obviously it's something. Is it something that's going to make me mad? Because I really can't deal with anything else right now. I'm just…"

"Tori…" She cuts me off, smiling a little bit. "Relax." She laughs. "Everything is okay. Nothing is going to make you mad. Hopefully it'll make you happy."

"Well, see, now you have me all excited. I want to know what's going on. We're almost to your apartment, if I remember correctly, right?" She nods with a small smirk. "Are you and Sam still living together?" I ask.

She rolls her eyes, slightly. "Yes, we're still living together. She's just a very big handful. Guess what she did to me the other day."

"What'd she do?" I question, anxious to find out what interesting thing Sam has done this time. Girl is crazy, man.

"Well, she really didn't do anything. She kinda just… took something that wasn't hers and used it to do something it wasn't meant to do."

"Oh, well, that doesn't sound like Sam at all." I laugh, being sarcastic.

She laughs to and continues her story. "I was in the kitchen making breakfast and Sam came in there asking if we had a toilet brush because she claimed the toilet was dirty. I don't know what from and I don't want to know… but…" She trails off with a disgusted look on her face.

"But…?"

"I told her we didn't." She says. It's almost like she's struggling to continue the story. "Later that day, I go into the bathroom and I see my toothbrush stuck at the bottom of the toilet." She grimaces.

"Oh my god, that's really disgusting." I grimace too. That's just nasty. "Did you put your hand in the toilet water?"

"Oh, hell no. Goomer took care of it for me." She kind of laughs.

She shudders. "Then he brushed his teeth with it. He said he liked the flavor of the toothbrush."

"No way." My jaw drops. You couldn't pay me to do that. If it was the last toothbrush in existence and I had to use it, then sorry, yellow teeth for Tori.

She shakes her head and shudders again. "What flavor did he say it was?"

"I didn't ask, so he didn't say. And I'm so glad I didn't ask because I probably would've been so grossed out that I would've buried myself in a hole and never came out."

"Why would you have done that?" I ask curiously.

"That's just disgusting." That really didn't answer my question, but I'll let it slide.

This car ride with Cat has been really relaxing. We've joked around. She's shared stuff that's happened in her daily life with me. I feel like, even though it's only been a week or so, that it's starting to go back to the way it used to be with us.

We used to be so close to each other. Almost inseparable. We told each other everything and never had any secrets. Any problems we had were either solved by using our words or a giant cheese fountain. I just want to forget that whole experience. I still feel bad about it.

By my point is that our friendship has stood the test of time. That just goes to show you how easy it is for two people who care about other people's feelings to get along.

In some ways, I'm sort of glad I ended up in that hospital. Because if I hadn't there'd be a slim to none chance that I would've encountered Cat again. And like she said earlier, I really wish it was under better circumstances.

Breaking my train of thought, Cat announces that we've arrived at her apartment. Yep. Still looks exactly the same.

"So am I going to find out what's going on in there or not?" I ask.

"You make it sound like I've got a zoo in there." She laughs. "Just relax.

I laugh because I know she's right. But then I pause for a minute. Is it possible she actually does have a zoo in there? Cat would be the one to do that.

We approach her door and she grabs her keys. Her house key is a pink one with a crown that says princess under it. Typical Cat.

She pushes in the door and there stand all of my best friends from High School. And they haven't changed a bit.

"Tori!" Andre yells and runs towards me. He picks me up and squeezes me tight while spinning around in a circle.

"How are you doing, girl?" He ask.

"I've been better. But I've been worse. Still a little weak." I smile.

Cat leans in my ear. "I can have them out in twenty minutes if you want me to. Whatever you're comfortable with."

"No, this is good. I think I need this. Thank you." I smile.

Beck walks over and gives me a short hug. "Hey, Tori. It's been a minute."

"Yeah, it has." I smile. "How is everyone?"

The whole gang says they're doing fine.

"I'm doing okay." Robbie says. "Except for this rash I have on my back. It's kinda bugging me." Like I said. Nothing has changed. Nothing.

I was honestly expecting to hear a snappy comeback from that dumb puppet of Robbie's, but Rex was nowhere to be seen.

"Robbie, where is Rex?" I ask.

"I sold him a while back. Probably a good year and a half ago." He answers. Man, it's been that long. That's crazy. "I figured it was just time to move on from him and start being me and only me."

"Wow, Robbie. That's really great. I'm proud of you." He smiles and comes into a hug. I gladly return it.

However, things did kind of get weird when he sniffed my hair. I heard him take a big whiff of it, too.

"Mmm… you smell like a hospital." He smiles and closes his eyes.

I push him off of me. "Okay, that's enough."

I take a seat on the couch because I'm still weak and get tired easily. I don't think anyone minded, really. I just think everyone was happy to get the gang back together. Some of us have stayed here. But others have gone off and pursued their greatest dream.

Like Andre… he's a big time music producer. It was always his dream. But I don't think he seems like he doesn't want to talk about it in front of us. Maybe he just doesn't want anyone to get the idea that he's better than them.

And there are also people, like Cat and I, who had dreams too, who chose to stay here and live a normal life. And it's not like I regret it or anything. Sometimes I do wonder what might have been if I chased that dream, but I don't want to get caught up in the past.

Suddenly, something feels weird. There is someone missing. And I know for sure who it is.

"Beck, where is Jade?" I ask.

"Right here, Vega." She says, coming from Sam and Cat's room. "Miss me?"

I stand and face her and her smirk. "Psh, no."

I can't keep the gag going any longer. I smile, as does she, and give her the biggest hug I could possibly give. And surprisingly, she returns it.

"It's been forever." I say.

"Yeah. It's good to see you, Tori." She smiles.

"Jade, what were you doing in my room?" Cat asks. Kind of a thunder stealer. I had Jade all mushy.

"Oh, nothing. Just… stuff." Cat gives her a curious look, but lets the whole thing go.

I haven't seen these people in forever. They were such a huge part of my life for three and a half years. We were friends for our entire high school careers. They were gone after that. Not because they wanted to be, but they went their separate ways. Either way, they were gone. But then they came back. And just like that…

They were gone again.

Possibly not forever, but they definitel They were gone after that. Not because they wanted to be, but they went their separate ways. Either way, they were gone. But then they came back. And just like that…

They were gone again.

Possibly not forever, but they definitely aren't staying right now.

"Thank you guys so much for coming over. I love and miss you all." I smile at them all and they smile back.

It all went by too fast. I wasn't ready for them to leave because it felt like they had just come back into my life. But I guess they all have their own things going on. Andre is obviously producing music. Beck said he was directing a movie that starred Jade. I guess the only one of us that really doesn't have anything going on is Robbie.

That lucky bastard.

It seems like the only person's life here that went off the rails was mine. It's not like I was miserable before all this. I was happy. Was.

They had all said their goodbyes and gave me their hugs, said they'd call if they could, and make sure to come visit again. There's always that feeling of dread that sets in when you think you might not see someone for a while, but for some reason, I was confident that they'd all be there for me when I needed them.

After they file out the door, I plant myself on the couch and take a deep breath. Soon enough, I feel Cat come over and sit beside me.

"You okay over there, Tori?" She smiles a little. I smile a weak one back at her and nod.

"Yeah, I'm okay, Cat. I just miss them all a lot."

"Well, they aren't going away forever." She says. She smirks at me. "And hey…" She lightly punches my arm. "You always have me."

I smile widely, showing her how much she means to me. I go in for a hug and she squeezes me tightly.

"There are those unbelievably beautiful cheekbones! It's been a little while since I've seen those."

She seems so happy right now. But suddenly, her whole demeanor changes completely. She went from happy to sad in almost an instant. I scoot over on the couch toward her. I place my hand on her arm.

"Cat, what's wrong?" I ask.

She looks down at the floor and huffs. "I know there's still some things that need to be discussed between you and I and I'm really not ready for all the bad stuff that's going to come from it."

"Well, there's not going to be anything other than crying, if we're talking about the same stuff that needs to be talked about."

"I'm just not ready to rehash old memories, is all." She says, quietly.

I pause for a minute. I look her in the eye. "Cat, what happened to you?"

She is zoned out for a few seconds and then she comes back to reality. "Just… you go first. Let's take care of you first. This whole thing is about your recovery. You staying here… we're doing this for you, not me."

"Okay…" I nod. "Well, as you know, there was another dream last night. It was a continuation of sorts to other dream I had. And it was… just as bad, if not worse."

"Well, tell me about it." She says. "I mean, if you want to tell me about it."

I take a moment to compose myself and then I take a deep breath. I open my mouth as if I'm about to say something, and then I close it again.

"Oh, no, we're not doing this. That's my thing." She says with a stern tone. "Tori, I need to know what's going on in your head."

I laugh a little bit at her first comment and then I return to my serious way of thinking. I take another deep breath and exhale slowly.

"Okay, so let's just start by saying that this one is affecting a little bit more than the last one and I can't tell you why. I've gone over it in my head a few times and I can't think of anything. It just is." I say. She nods.

"This one was probably more traumatic. Did he hit you more in this one than he did the last one?" She asks.

I shake my head no. "No, he actually didn't. I mean, he did hit me. This time it was more… verbal abuse than physical. Just… some of the things he said we just… terrible. I think that's what got me." I say. She nods and puts her chin in the palm of her hand, obviously deep in thought.

"So what were some of the things he said?" She asks. "You don't have to say if you don't feel comfortable talking about it. Just tell me how you feel if you want to."

"No, I'm fine." I lower my head and wipe a small tear coming out of my eye. However, it's no good, because another one follows it and rolls down my cheek. Cat wipes it away.

"Take your time." She grabs my hand and in an instant, I feel a rush of relief come over me. My eyes meet hers and they stay there for a while. But after that moment, I break my eyes away from hers.

"Anyway… he just said… he said I wasn't worth his time. That I wasn't being appreciative of what he was doing for me." He jaw drops, then anger seems to appear on her face. She starts to say something, but I finish the sentence for her.

"Yes, he thought hitting me would help me." I lower my head again. That rush of relief that I felt a minute ago? Gone.

"I can't believe he actually thought that. That's ridiculous." Her eyes are turning red and beginning to water. She wipes them away quickly, though.

"No, don't you cry." I say, choking up. "Don't you do that to me. I can't handle myself and someone else. Please don't be sad about this."

"Tori, no. Don't tell me not to be sad about this. You… you're literally my best friend. I know you and I have just become close again but best friends don't ever really go away. It's been years and I never forgot about the amazing friendship we had and still have. And because we're best friends, there's no way in the world that I'll ever not be sad about something that is hurting you so badly. Telling me not to be sad about this is like telling a comedian to not be funny. It's their job to be funny. If they're not funny, how long will their career last? Not long at all. So if I'm not there to feel what you feel and help you through what you're going through, how good of a best friend am I really being? Just think about that." She says.

I missed this. I missed her. I missed all of the invaluable lessons she accidentally taught me and ones like the one she just taught me; ones that actually were thought through and all that good stuff. I'm glad she's back.

I smile briefly and lower my head again. I look up at her and smile even bigger.

"Thank you so much. Thank you for being my best friend. I don't know what I'd do without you." I say quietly.

"Well, you did without me for about five years." She smiles, still teary eyed.

"And look where it got me. I'm getting beaten by my dad and I killed someone." I look at the ground and start to feel bad about myself. I can't believe all this is happening to me.

"Hey." She says, taking my chin again. That's becoming another trademark move of hers. "You're going to get through this. I know this has to be hard. Believe me, I understand."

There it is again. She understands. What does she understand? What?

"Cat, what are you talking about? That's the second time you've told me you understand what I'm going through." I say, moving closer to her.

"Tori, I'm about to tell you something no one knows."

**A/N: BOOM! Sorry about the cliffhanger. I know that probably made a lot of people mad. But you know what? Sorry not sorry. **

**I'm actually very proud of this chapter. It was a lot of fun to write. I hope everyone liked it! I'll be doing my best to get another one out very soon.**

**!ALSO! If anyone is going through anything remotely similar to what Tori is going through, please let somebody know. It is seriously not your fault. It is NEVER your fault.**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Hello there. I'll start this chapter by saying what I said last chapter. Read this thing I wrote. If you want. If not, I get it. But you're missing out. I think you are. I'll shut up now. **

**WARNING: There is no depiction of abuse in this chapter. However, there is a lengthy discussion or two about it. Read at your own discretion. **

**Enjoy it, fam.**

She's scaring the crap out of me. Like she is seriously scaring me. They way she she's acting… it's making me question who she is deep down inside. Like, is she really this huge ball of happiness everyone knows her to be?

In the past, Cat always had her moments. And by moments, I mean that she always had a day or two every now and then when she wouldn't say a word. She'd barely eat. She used to lay her head on her desk at school. She'd give one word answers to text messages. She used to wear sweatpants and hoodies.

This is all too familiar.

There is something eating at her on the inside, and it's going to drive her crazy if she doesn't talk about it. And it seems like I'm the only one she's even thought about telling. But what sucks is that I'm not exactly in the most ideal position to take all of this load that she's about to drop on me.

It's not like I don't want to listen, because she's listened to all of my problems. I mean, it's the least I can do. I just don't want to get pushed off the edge because I tried to bite off more than I can chew.

Currently, she's biting her lip. It's a sign of stress. She's also twiddling her thumbs. Again, a sign of stress. I'll be glad when Cat gets this out in the open, because I'm ready to have the old Cat back. Or what I know to be Cat. This could've always been her; she could've just always been hiding it from everyone by acting the way she does.

"Alright, Cat. Talk to me." I say with a soft tone. I scoot close to her and grab her hand, just as she did for me when I was talking about my dream for the first time.

I can tell she wants to stall, but she knows she can't. She takes that deep breath she has taken so many times throughout the last few weeks.

"Okay… so has it seemed like something has been bothering me since we started getting close again? Like have I been acting different?"

She is so stalling.

"Yes, Cat. You've been acting completely different. Why are you tip toeing around this issue?" I answer with a bored tone. She nods.

"Okay… and to make sure we're on the same page… you recall how I said I understand everything you're going through?" She asks.

"Yes." I say. "I remember. How, exactly, do you identify with this situation?"

"Hey, is there any… any way I could get a cup of coffee before we get into this?" She asks. Good God let's get this rolling.

"No. Talk."

The fact that she's hiding this from me like this is crazy. Something serious must've happened when she was younger. I just don't know what. She seemed so happy in High School. Even when she had those bad days, she still seemed to be a happy person. I just don't understand.

"Tori… when I was little, I was beaten."

Jesus. I had no idea. She never told me.

"Why didn't I ever know about this?" My jaw feels like it's on the ground. I never had a clue.

She shrugs and lowers her head. She takes a deep breath and puts her chin in the palm of her hand. She looks up at me with a tear in her right eye. She wipes it away and forces a smile.

Waving her hands around, trying to make it seem like it's not a big deal, she says, "Tori, it's not that big of a deal, really. I just told you so you knew someone understood. I didn't want to go into a big discussion about it."

"Well that's too bad." I say. "Because we're having one. Cat, you just can't bring something like this up and then try to drop it. Ask yourself this; would you have let me drop the subject of my dreams if I tried? Because I know for a fact you wouldn't."

Her forced smile has long-since disappeared. Her face is flush, her eyes are red, and her breathing has become a bit more strained and deep.

"No, I wouldn't. You're right." She says, quietly.

"So please, talk to me. I don't want you to live with this inside anymore. I know you. And I feel like I know how much it's eating you up inside. So talk to me." My grip tightens on her hand, as does hers.

"Alright, I'll talk." She chokes out.

I smile… kind of.

"So… my first question… why didn't I know about this? As good of friends as we were in high school, why didn't you tell me about this?" I ask.

Again, she shrugs and lowers her head. "I don't know." She says. "I just always figured that other people's problems were bigger than mine. Like… my problems didn't matter, I guess."

That's like a big punch in the stomach. The fact that she kept everything inside for all this time feels like someone stabbed me with a knife and twisted it. This is unbelievable.

I turn away briefly to compose myself, and then I turn back to Cat. I put my free hand on her shoulder, doing my best to comfort her.

"Look, I know you're a good person. And I know you put others before yourself. But this, Cat… this was one of those times where you needed to tell someone. The fact that you were abused as a little girl is serious. You're not supposed to go through that when you're little."

"Who said I was little?" Her words, again, feel like knives twisting in my gut.

"You… I… what?" I stutter.

"This went on until I was fifteen years old."

"We didn't meet until we were sixteen." I say.

"And that's why you never knew. You never saw me when I was going through it; when it was really bad, you know? You never got to see just how emotionally compromised I became. And honestly, I'm really glad you didn't. It wasn't pretty… to say the very least."

At this point, I'm not worried about my composure. Screw that. I'm worried about my friend.

"And as long as I'm being honest, it was by design not to tell you. I made sure the gang didn't say a word to you. I just couldn't let them."

"Wait." I say. "So I'm the only one that doesn't- or didn't- know about you and what you've been through? Why?"

"Because you care about me the most. And I knew you'd react like this when the time to tell you came." She says. "But Tori, you have to realize that I'm okay. As soon as we get all this with your situation taken care of, I'll be okay. Honestly, I learned to live with it. I mean, it's not like I never think about it. I can't just block fifteen years of my life out. But I promise… I'll be okay."

"Cat, I know you'll be okay. I know this. But the fact that you were hurting and I didn't know… that hurts my heart. That literally hurts my very soul because you were hurting and there was no way I could've stopped it. Because I didn't know."

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I didn't tell you. I just didn't know how you'd handle it. I didn't know if you'd go talk to my dad and…"

"So it was your dad, too." I say.

She nods her head.

With that, we sit in silence. I didn't bother to ask her to go into detail about it. I didn't know how she viewed it. I didn't know how comfortable she was with talking about it. I think it's best that I don't because I know if I was telling someone I was beaten by my dad, I know I wouldn't be too excited to go into a lot of detail. So I don't push it.

"I didn't bring this up to get into a big long discussion." She says. So she isn't comfortable talking about it. "I only told you because I want you to understand that I understand what you're going through. And I also understand that I couldn't even possibly begin to fathom the amount of emotional toll that the situation with the detectives and Cheryl Tomlinson is taking on you. But everything with your dad… believe me. I more than understand."

She moves closer to me and wraps me up into a hug. I feel my eyes begin to water and a few tears fall down. I bury my head and start to sob. Because she's right. I'm under an immense amount of stress. I am facing a charge which is essentially murder. And the only reason it's not murder is because I was wasted. And if you ask me, that's what it should be. Being drunk shouldn't be an excuse to hide behind to get out of it being called murder. Because it _is. _I took a person's life. And I have to live with that forever.

I'm crying so hard that I'm almost hyperventilating. Cat starts to rub the back of my head while holding me tighter. I can't imagine where I'd be without her right now. Her being by my side through this is going to be key.

She pushes me back a little and looks me in the eye; my red and watery eyes. She brushes away a tear running down my face with a smile.

"Cheekbones as pretty as yours don't deserve to have tears on them. They deserve to be shown off with that smile of yours." Her words have always made me feel better even at my worst. "Can I see one of them?"

"One of… what?" I sniff.

"Just one of those world class smiles is all." She smiles again. "Is there any way I can see one?"

Cat is the only person I know who continues to try to make you smile when you clearly don't want to. But nevertheless, she keeps going. And damn it, every single time she tries to force one out of me, she gets one. This time was no exception. It's not a good one. But she gets what she wants.

"There it is." She smiles. God does she ever not smile? I'm starting to think it's an actual sickness she has. She's talking about something that was traumatic when she was a little girl and possibly later and she's smiling. She is literally smiling ear to ear.

It bugs me, secretly. If you ask me why, I probably won't be able to tell you. It just does. Maybe I'm a little jealous because I can't feel that. I can't just plaster a smile on my face when my life has turned to shit. But apparently she can.

"Cat, can I ask you a question?" I ask with a sniff and a croak.

"Of course. What's up?"

"How do you do it?"

"Wait, how do I do what?" She cocks her head to the side and gives me a confused look.

"I mean… like… how do you stay happy all the time?" I ask again. I really don't have an easier way to ask it.

"You mean how do I stay happy when I'm stressed out?"

"Yeah. Kinda. Like how do you deal with your own issues while taking on other people's problems too? And again, the most astonishing thing is how you stay so positive."

"That's the thing. I don't deal with my problems. Other people come first to me, for some reason. And… as for the positivity thing… I have to be because everyone is negative around me." I guess that includes me, too. "If other people are negative and I'm negative, who is left to be positive? The sun in the sky?"

"Even the sun doesn't come out every now and then. The sun isn't positive all the time." I argue.

"But behind the clouds, what is it doing?" She asks. This part of Cat is different from the Cat we knew in high school. She's deep. She actually thinks. That's something no one ever saw. Not even Beck, and we all consider him the smartest one in the group.

I smile again. This girl has a weird effect on me. "You're right, Cat. The sun is always shining, even if we can't exactly see it. Thank you for that."

"Well, you're quite welcome, Tori." She playfully nudges me and continues with what she was saying. "What I've learned to think about is like… like when clouds are blocking the sun and it's raining real bad… I just think of each rain drop as one less problem I have to deal with. And then after it's through raining, the sun comes out. And then the positivity starts shining again."

This is unbelievable. Thank you, God, for putting her back in my life. I don't know what I'd do without her.

"I believe that when the sun is looking down at the earth and he sees clouds roll in, he thinks, 'Okay, these are going to go away soon. So I have to put on my best and brightest face for when they do.' You just have to look at adversity from different perspectives."

I'm astonished. That is all.

"Cat, I never knew you had this side of you. This… deep thinker that comes out just when you need it to." I say.

"I've grown up, Tori. I'm not just a little red-headed, ditzy girl that I used to be in High School. I have real thoughts now. I have a life and a career that's actually turning out to benefit me. Sure, I'm not an actress on Broadway like I wanted to be, but this life I'm living is fantastic. There have been quite a few negative things happen to me in my life. But now, I'm actually starting to experience the positive part of life and the joyous part of being here in the situation I'm in." She says, finally taking a break from speaking. However, I sit there waiting for her to start again. And what does she do?

"I think of life like a game of Black Jack." She starts talking again, of course. Not that it's a bad thing, anyway.

"A game of Black Jack? How does that relate to life?" I ask, genuinely confused. I'm anxious to hear this.

"In Black Jack, you get dealt however many cards you want. You start out with two cards and then you have the option to ask for more or stay where you're at. When you stay where you're at, that's a little something I call settling. I've learned not to settle over the years. So when I play Black Jack, I always hit. I always draw another card, hoping to get to twenty-one. And when I bust… well that's too bad. I busted. I come right back and start anteing up again. I play another hand because in life, you can't settle for anything, because someone is always there, ready to take everything away from you. The difference between success and failure in life could be one card. That's why you never settle."

Son of a bitch, she's good. I don't know where my situation plays into that.

"Cat… that was great." I say. "But how in the world does my situation fall into that scenario?"

"Because where you're at in life, you could have a king and a seven in your hands. You've got seventeen there. That's a potential winning hand. But where you're at and with the situation you're in, you can't afford to settle. You need that twenty-one. Because without it, there's always going to be the possibility that you lose. No matter what, unless you have twenty-one, you're running the risk of losing."

"I get all that, but Black Jack is a game of chance. How can I trust chance?" I ask.

"Black Jack is a game of faith; faith in what cards may come your way. And like I said, you may bust. But you _cannot _stop trying to get to that twenty-one."

"Gambling is dangerous, Cat. What if I mess up?"

She ponders that question for a second. Because it's a good question. You can very easily mess up when you gamble.

"Have you ever seen the movie _Rounders_?" She asks. Where is she going with this?

"Yeah, I've seen it. Why?"

"Well… Edward Norton fucked up really bad. He lost a bunch of money." She's proving my point. "But Matt Damon came through and saved them."

I see what she means.

"So in our situation, I'm Matt Damon and you're Ed Norton. I'll be there to save you if you ever mess up." She says.

I smile for the hundredth time. "Thank you. You're the best around, Ca…"

"MAMA'S HOME!" It's then, before I can even finish my sentence, I notice the butchy blonde known as Sam walk through the front door of Cat's apartment. She glares at me.

"Ew. There's too many happy people in this room." Sam says, rudely.

"For you information, Sam, we really aren't the happiest of people right now. There's a lot on our minds." She takes up for me just like she always does. More people should be like her.

"I guess there's a first time for everything. Happy people must get sad sometimes." She looks amazed at the fact that someone like Cat, with such an optimistic perspective of life, could possibly have a negative attitude at the moment. "How bout that." Sam walks into the kitchen.

Cat stands up and follows Sam's footsteps into the kitchen. She stands still for a moment and then starts leaning against the counter. "Hey, Sam?"

"What?" She says, harshly.

"Can Tori… maybe… stay with…"

"NO."

"But Sam, please?" Cat begs. "Tori is really going through something right now and it's really hard for both of us because we've gone through similar things. So can you please find it in your heart to let Tori stay here for a little while? Please?"

"Sam, I promise I won't be bothersome. I can find a way to get my own food. I promise I won't steal any fried chicken from your stash." I plead.

She rubs her face and runs a hand through her hair as if she's trying to talk herself out of saying no.

"You won't touch the fried chicken?" She asks.

"No."

"You won't touch the pork?"

"Hand to God." I raise my right hand.

"What about my ribs?"

"What ribs?" I ask, although I clearly know she has ribs, I say that to show her that I'll forget about them eventually and will never touch them.

She smirks a little. "Yeah, I guess you can stay here."

"Thank you so much!" I run over to her and give her a huge bear hug.

"Okay back'er down a notch there, butch." She pushes me away, but at least she knows I'm grateful for the generosity.

"Okay… I've had enough discussion for one day. I dealt with a cop pulling me over today and questioning me about some missing meat and then I came home to you guys. So I'm gonna crash."

Cat and I both wave at Sam and tell her to sleep well.

"Wake me up in two days." She says, but she stops. "If I don't wake up, put some ribs under my nose. And if that doesn't work… I guess we're shit outta luck."

She turns away and enters their bedroom. Cat and I both take a deep breath and exhale with a sigh of relief. After waiting for a few seconds, we start laughing hysterically. It's the first time in the past two weeks that either of us has really laughed like this; just a real good belly laugh.

"What are you laughing at?" I say, almost choking on laughter.

"Just how someone like Sam, who acts so tough all the time, caves just like that." She doubles over and falls onto the floor.

Honestly, I don't know what's so funny about hat just went down, but damn it, there's something there.

"And the only reason she was against it in the first place was because she thought I was going to eat her meat." Okay, so it's either it was extremely obvious that that what I just said was something that could easily be something dirty, or I have the mind of a sixth-grade boy.

"You realize what you just said, right?" She chuckles, lightly.

"Yes, I heard it." I lower my head in shame at the fact that I, and my best friend, do in all actuality, have the minds of sixth-grade boys.

After the laughing finally comes to a stop, she changes the subject to a problem that needs to be solved rather quickly.

"So sleeping arrangements." She says. "What are you thinking?"

"I guess I could…"

"You're not taking the couch. I'll sleep out here if have to." What a friend she is. After all these years. It's just amazing to me how long a friendship can last, and how strong it can remain after all these years.

"Then I don't know. What do you want to do? I mean, after all, this is your house." I say.

"We did always sleep together when we were in high school do you think you'd want to do that? It's probably about as comfortable as you're gonna get. But it's completely up to you." She says.

"That's very sweet of you to offer, Cat, but isn't your bed like… really small?"

"I don't know. Maybe a little bit. But it's not like we're huge or anything. I'm five-foot-two and you're five-five. Don't you think we'd fit?" She asks.

"Yeah, I guess we could. It'll be a sleep over, High School style."

"YAY! Tori and Cat's sleep over!" She throws her hands up in the air.

"Sounds like a porn movie's title." I mumble.

She gives me an emotionless face and looks me dead in the eye.

"Why did you have to ruin it, you little sixth-grader?" She asks.

I make a weird noise and throw my hands up in the air, as if to say, "I don't even know, man."

Cat then stands up and walks into the kitchen.

"Do you want anything to eat?" She asks.

"Whatcha got?"

Before she can answer, there's a knock on the door.

* * *

"What the hell do you want?" Emily Ross and Bernard Borland stand in the doorway.

"Ms. Valentine, we received a tip from a reliable source that Tori Vega is here. May we come in?" He asks politely.

"Before I decide, you need to tell me why you're here." She says.

"Ms. Valentine, have you been drinking tonight?"

"Will you chill out with that question? Learn some new ones, for God's sake. Take it easy, Barney Fife."

"Ross, why don't you just go wait in the car?" Borland suggests.

"But Boss…" She protests.

"That wasn't a request, Emily." He says sternly.

Cat eyes her and Cat eyes her back. I can tell that good old Agent Ross and I are going to have some problems later on down the road.

I see her break away from Cat and look back at Borland. Then she walks away.

Borland takes a deep breath and composes himself. "Is Tori Vega here?"

"You still haven't told me what you want."

"I just want to talk to her. There is going to be no arrest unless there is a confession. You have my word as a police officer and a man." He says, genuinely.

I stand up. "I'm right here. Can I help you, Agent?" Cat steps aside.

"Uh, yes. I'd just like to talk with you for a moment. Do you mind?"

I'm hesitant at first, but I make a hand gesture towards the couch. "Sit." He does so.

"Now, Ms. Vega…"

"Just… Tori. Call me Tori. I guess we'll be seeing a lot of each other over the next few months.

"Yes, well… Tori… this visit's purpose is to gather information and to gain more knowledge about what you remember, since now you're well and back home."

"What do you want to know? I feel like I told you everything I know about that night. I was drunk and I hit someone. That's all there is to it." Tori, you damn liar. The dreams. The dreams. Tell him about the dreams.

He puts his hand up, telling me to relax without actually saying it.

"I understand that you're going through a lot right now. But I have one question for you and I'll get on to what I'm really here for, as long as your answer is what I expect it to be." I nod. "And as I ask this question, I must ask that you be nothing but honest with me. I don't want to waste my time on something that doesn't deserve my attention."

"Of course. What's your question?"

"I want to know if you think that there is any possibility that you weren't at fault in the accident. Do you, theoretically, that it could've been Cheryl Tomlinson's death could've been caused by herself?" He asks.

"What are you getting at?" Cat pipes up.

"I'm saying that I don't think Tori did what she's being accused of. It's just… there was no evidence of whether it was her fault or Mrs. Tomlinson's. The only thing the prosecutors have against Tori is that she was driving under the influence."

"Sir, with all due respect, it wasn't too long ago that you and your gung-ho partner out there were ready to burn me at the stake. Why the sudden change of heart?" I ask.

He rubs a hand over his sullen face. It is then that I finally notice the bags under his eyes, his slightly pale skin tone, and the light scruff on his face. He looks clearly exhausted and conflicted.

"Do you recall when Ross and I left the hospital?" Cat and I nod. "When I left, I said we had some things we needed to discuss. Now, I didn't discuss anything with Ross. I had a very long mental discussion with myself, however. I was stuck between doing my job regardless of how I felt and doing what I felt was right."

"I'm sorry." I cover my face with my hands. "My mind is going about a ninety miles an hour and I'm having trouble keeping up with it."

"I just need to know if you think there's any possibility that you didn't do what people are saying you did."

I ponder the thought for a minute. Is there really a possibility someone either framed me or that what they thought they took from the evidence wasn't really there?

"I… I guess there's always a chance." I say. "Yes, I believe that it could've not been my fault."

"Okay, so that will lead me to my next question. Are you just going to sit here and let this thing play out, or are you going to fight and prove your innocence if there is any?" He asks. That's a good ass question.

"I don't know what I can do? It's out of my hands. It's not like I can go through all the evidence, because they have none. They have nothing they can pin on me except for a DUI. So at this point, I'll probably just elect to let everything play out." I huff.

"Well don't say that yet. Do you have anyone you know on the inside of the police force?"

Shit. Dad.

"Yes, um… my father is the commissioner."

"Vega. Vega! I knew that name was familiar. David is your dad?" He asks, shocked.

"Yes, he is." I say, quietly. Even talking about him makes my skin crawl. I can't even think about him and I get queasy.

"Well there you go! You're set right there."

"I'd prefer if we left him out of this. I feel like he'd be very disappointed in me if he had to look into all the details. I know he knows about it, but still. And I'd prefer it if he didn't have to put himself through all that." Another good lie. Way to go, Tori.

He nods. "Well… I can understand where you're coming from. He says. "Are you sure you won't reconsider?" I nod. "Well that brings me to my plan B. What if I helped prove your innocence? Free of charge."

Wait, is he asking me if we want to work with him on this case? Does that mean I'll have to work with my dad? Because if so, that's kind of a pointless question.

"This will be completely confidential. Only we will know about it. Again, you have my word as a police officer and as a man." He states. I'm slowly warming up to the idea, but I can't help but be wary about working with the police on this.

"By completely confidential… you mean…?"

"I mean, Vega won't even know about it. I went to him and said I didn't want this case. This is a dark-op."

"Can you give Cat and I a little while to think about this? This is… big for me in a of ways. Kind of like… a life-saving opportunity."

"Well shouldn't that be all the more reason for you to take me up on my offer?" He asks.

"Well, no, honestly. Because if I work with you, I could be digging my own grave. If I help, I could be unknowingly helping you find evidence against me. What if I'm actually hurting myself by helping the police investigate?"

He throws his hands in the air.

"If you want to prove your innocence, I guess those are the risks you're going to have to be willing to take. It's up to you." He reaches into his back pocket to retrieve his wallet. He opens it up and pulls out a business card with his number on it and hands one to both Cat and I. He stands up and starts walking to the door.

"Agent Borland?" I call out for him before he can exit the door. He turns around.

"Yes, Tori?"

"Will Agent Ross be in on this?"

He smiles and lets out a little chuckle.

Again, before he can leave, Sam comes running in the room.

"I didn't do it, whatever it is. You're just wasting your time here. You can leave if…" She stops when she sees who paid us a visit. "Borland…"

"Puckett…"

"How you been?" Sam asks, dryly.

"I'm okay." He responds in the same way. "You staying out of trouble?"

"Have you seen my name on your desk lately?"

He shakes his head no.

"Well there you go. I'm being a good girl, thanks to Cat here."

He chuckles and turns for the door. "You all have a good rest of your day. Tori, call me." Then he leaves.

"Sam, how do you know Agent Borland?"

"I messed up in High School a little after Carly left for Italy. Don't even ask." She says. "What happened in the past stays in the past. Unless you're drunk in Vegas." After that brief, yet odd encounter with Sam, she walks back into her room.

Cat and I both exhale loudly, for what seems like the thousandth time.

"We have a lot to think about, don't we?" She asks.

"Yeah, we do." I say. "What do you think?"

"Honestly, sweetie, I just think you need to rest. We can talk about this another time." She smiles. "Do you still want something to eat?"

"Yes… that'd be great."

Suddenly, I start smiling. I'm a sweetie. Who knew?

**A/N: Okay. So some chiz happened in this chapter. Let me know what you thought in a review. If not, that's fine. But I like reviews. It makes me happy seeing what people think. But hey, do you boo boo. Do you.**

**Thanks for reading, Fammo. **


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Hey fam. Enjoy this thing I wrote.**

"Here you go!" Cat hands me something she made from scratch. She smiles and sits down on the coffee table. She crosses her legs and interlocks her fingers with an anxious expression on her face. She's staring me down.

"Okay…" I say, hesitantly. "Here I go." I lift the spoon up to my mouth and blow lightly on the food that looks like lasagna. I slowly put it in my mouth. I chew slowly at first, but as my taste buds become more acquainted with the rich flavor of the food, I start craving more.

"Cat, this is delicious." I dig in even further, shoveling bite after bite into my mouth.

"Good, I'm glad you like it!" She smiles and slightly bounces in place. I guess the fact that I liked her dish made her happy. That kinda makes me happy. A small smile forms on my face. She's turned these past two weeks into something really special and almost… bearable.

Soon enough, my plate is clean. I felt like licking the rest of the sauce off of the plate, but I figured with Cat sitting her watching me, it may be just a bit unladylike and impolite.

"Is it sad that I want to lick the rest of this off the plate?" I ask, slightly ashamed.

"Absolutely not. Food is good, and I don't blame you for wanting to eat it all. Not one hairy bit."

It's funny. You'd think I'm just now realizing that I can be myself around her. My nasty, unladylike, impolite self. Maybe after all this time, Jade West actually could've rubbed off on me in some small ways.

That food was something else, though, man.

"Cat, where did you learn to cook like that? That was amazing." I marvel.

"My Nona. She's the best cook ever. My whole family has Italian roots, and you know they're like the best cooks in the world over there. So she just taught me everything she knew and now here we are." She says. "And to be honest, I'm really not that great of a cook. My Nona is ten times better."

"Well I'd love to see how well she could make this. I mean…"

"Let me guess. It's amazing?" She says sarcastically with a smirk on her face. Jade-like, almost.

"It's amazing. Will you teach me how to cook?" I ask. I mean it. One day, when I have someone I'm sharing my life with, I want to be able to cook whoever it may be an amazing dinner. Hopefully all this stuff will go over smoothly and I'll be able to find that person.

"Oh, that'd be totally cool! I'd love to teach you. There's really nothing to it." She acts like cooking isn't a big deal and that it's so easy. But just like everything in my life, I'm sure it'll be hard.

"You didn't mean tonight though, did you?"

"Oh, no. Absolutely not. I'm too worn out for all that. I meant like… after everything soothes over. If… everything smoothes over." I say, sadly. It's crazy how your mood can just flip on a dime.

Cat scoots from her seat on the coffee table to sit beside me on the couch and puts her arm around me. She squeezes me tightly, and gives me all the love she can muster.

"Hey…" I turn my head away from her. "Hey, look at me." She grabs my chin and turns my head to where my face is visible. A tear falls from my eye, but she quickly wipes it away.

"I'm sorry." I wipe the rest of my face off and throw on a fake smile, trying to make her drop this subject. I hate talking about it because I probably won't have any time to do anything with my best friend in the entire world. I'll be making new friends somewhere else.

"Hey… just don't talk like that. You heard everything Agent Borland said he would do. You heard all that. He's going to help us if we let him. Your dad will never know." I shudder at the work "dad". "You're going to make it through all this. And I'll be damned if I ever stop believing that. Have I ever broken a promise to you?" She asks.

She really hasn't broken a promise to me. She's let a few secrets slip that I needed her to keep, but she never promised me anything where she went back on her word. Not one time.

Keep in mind that this is the girl who I sprayed hot cheese on when she was making out with my ex-boyfriend, Danny. Then, I proceeded to make out with said ex-boyfriend and got caught. But somehow, she still keeps her word. Every single time, she never fails to keep a promise.

"I don't make promises I can't keep, Tori. And I sure as hell don't give up on anything I love." That brings a tear to my eye. It actually does. I lower my head and smile.

She pulls me closer and squeezes me even tighter than before. I hug her back and after all that, I'm happy again. Her words, her very few words, have completely turned me around.

"You mean that?" I ask, quietly.

"I promise, I really do mean it." That makes me smile. Because I know she means it because she promised me.

She stands up after squeezing me one last time and takes my plate to the kitchen. She places it in the sink and starts to wash the dish. As she does so, I lay my head back on the couch to get a little rest for my tired, tired eyes.

After everything that happened that day, I doze off. And then, what seems like all of a sudden, I wake up the same way I had each of the past three nights. Cat is right beside me in her bed. I hope she doesn't notice the Tori-shaped sweat stain on her bed.

I place my feet on the cold floor and stand up. The sound of Sam's insane snoring was too much for me to listen to while going back to sleep, so my only way out was to get up.

I walk into the living room and look at the clock on the wall. Three-forty-five in the morning. Whenever I fall asleep early, this happens. I never can just sleep the whole night. But this time, it wasn't because of how early I went to bed. I honestly think I needed the sleep. I think this time… it was dream. This one wasn't bad though. It went on from the time that I bumped my head on the side of the house to when I got in the car and pulled out of our subdivision.

After standing in place like an idiot for five minutes, I turn towards the kitchen and walk towards the back door. I pull it open and step outside onto the patio. The mild, yet humid weather of California hits my face and it allows me a fresh breath of air. The night is absolutely perfect.

I look up above me and look up at all of the stars shining ever so bright in the night sky. They make me feel one of the smallest things known to man. Because those stars are light years away and somehow, some of them are still manage to blind me on Earth. We can barely see an airplane flying with the sun shining. Those things are only twenty thousand feet up. Those stars are… countless miles away from us, but they still shine so bright. How small am I?

"Inside my mind is one weird place." I mutter to myself.

"Why don't you let me in there? Let me see what it's all about. Maybe I can help." I hear a voice come from behind me, and there's no mistaking who it is. I turn around and see the little red head wrapped up in her robe, hair a complete mess.

"How long have you been there?" I ask.

She shrugs and walks closer to me. She stops when she's directly beside me. "I guess I came in about halfway through your thought about the stars and how small we are down here."

"Did I say all that stuff out loud?" I ask. "Or did you read my mind?"

She laughs but she quickly stops. She continues to look up at the sky that only seems to be getting clearer. We are, for once, quiet.

"Can I ask you a quick question, Cat?" I ask.

"Of course… ask away."

"Do you think… I mean… don't you think it's a little weird that Agent Borland wants to help us like this? When have you ever heard of any police officer or agent or detective… whatever you want to call him… don't you think it's a little weird that all of a sudden, after making that stink in the hospital, he has this change of heart?"

She processes the question for a minute. I can tell she's thinking hard because she's biting her bottom lip lightly. She looks up at the sky and starts giving her answer.

"So you think all this is weird, huh?" She asks. That's really a no brainer. Where exactly is she going with this?

"Well, yeah, I guess that's what I'm saying. I've just never seen something like this happen. Not even on TV. And everyone knows you can do just about anything on TV."

"Well, I have a question for you. What about all this isn't weird, Tori? This whole situation is weird. When do you see a case being looked into on such little evidence? They have your Blood Toxicity Level. What else? There's an agent volunteering to help you. And the weirdest thing of all: you have never done anything like this. This sounds awful… but you almost drive better when you're wasted. That's not to say it's safe, of course, because it's completely unsafe. But I've driven behind you before and you look just fine. What was different about this time? I understand that it could happen at any time, but what are the odds that it was that night?"

"Cat, I was drunk. Like I was completely trashed. I was gone. I barely remember anything. I don't have much reason to doubt that I actually did it. I mean, for God's sake, the only way I'm remembering anything is because I'm having dreams." Speaking of which, I have to remember to tell her about that. "I'll acknowledge that this situation is quite unique. I haven't seen anything like it. But all it takes is one time for something of this nature to happen and it just so happened to happen to me." I know I'm being negative, but what exactly is there to be positive about?

"I'm just asking you to stick with this investigation. I think that recruiting Agent Borland to help out would benefit you greatly. And I have a few other connections I might be able to bring in." She says.

"Cat, I don't know. I just…"

"Tori Vega, when have you ever been known to not try at something? Have you ever half-assed something in your entire life?"

"Well…" I start.

"Your first day at Hollywood Arts, you got coffee poured all over you. The second day, you stood up to the girl who poured said coffee on your head. And you even kissed her boyfriend!" She laughs. "I'm also not so sure you didn't want to do that." She smirks.

"I guess I really tried there." I admit.

"The Bird Scene… Damn… How long did you work on that? What was it? A week or so? Non-stop?"

"Something like that." I say quietly.

"You got old lady glasses. You created your own backdrop. You made the clothes you wore. You downloaded prairie. You even went as far to train that bird to come in and go out whenever you told it to. If that's half-assed, then I don't know what effort really is."

I see her point. I really didn't do anything half way in high school. I either did it or didn't do it at all. I guess somewhere along the way, that part of Tori Vega went away. Too bad I don't know where to look to find her.

"We'll skip down the line a little bit. Prome. It was so much fun. I mean, there were a few things you couldn't control. Like Jade's incredibly cruel sabotage of the whole night and Robbie constantly getting onto me for 'not letting him bring me to the prome' because 'I already had a date'. And I really did. But that night was great. We sang a song in the rain and it was amazing. Everything was great and you planned it all."

"Cat, this is all fine and good, but that stuff wasn't of this caliber of seriousness." In the dark, I can see her eyes roll in her head. She steps away for a moment and puts her hands on her hips.

She's quiet for a good minute. So am I. I can feel her frustration with me. Right now, I'm being super difficult and I know I am. It's not like I'm trying to shoot her opinions and her views of things down. I just can't see any way that we… I… come out on top in this. It's intoxication manslaughter. How do I win? In what scenario do I come out a winner?

She turns back to me and in the moonlight I can see a small tear running down her cheek. It rolls all the way to the base of her jaw and drips off, leaving a trail of water behind it.

"Tori, I'm trying so hard to help you. I'm a positive person. You know this. But you are making it _incredibly _hard to maintain positivity. Let me help you here. Tori, you can't do this alone. You won't do this alone. But with me, Agent Borland, and anyone else who is on our side, we're unbeatable. Give this a chance. Save yourself. You can do this if you try. I know you and I _know_ you know you can."

"But Cat…" I cover my face with my hands.

"No. There are no buts here." She says sternly. I almost jump at her tone. Her sad demeanor is all but gone. "I know I'm being slightly harsh here. And I'm not going to push you to do anything because you're your own person and you can make your own decisions. But I'm going to say this one time and I'm not going to sugar coat it. If you don't prove yourself innocent, you're gonna do time, Tori. You will be locked up and taken away from the outside world for a while." That hits me hard.

"If I don't prove myself innocent, I'm still going to prison." I say

She grabs my shoulders.

"You don't have to, Tori. You don't have to. You can be free. You just have to work for it. There was no Prome without work. You didn't stand up to Jade without work. You didn't perfect that stupid bird scene without work. Nothing is free in life." She softens her voice a little. "Not one damn thing. You know that."

I lower my head, slightly ashamed of the way I've acted. My negativity has swallowed me. It made me a sad, confused wreck.

"I just want to say one last thing: you're my best friend, Tori. You always will be. And because of that, I want you to think of something for me. If you go to prison, I'll be without you for years. Years. I can't go without my phone for a week. What makes you think that I could **ever **do without you for years?"

"Cat, before all this, it had been five years." I say. Tori, shut your negative ass up.

"See that's the thing. I knew in those five years that there was always a slight chance I might see you. I could see you at the grocery store or at a restaurant or… I don't know. I could've seen you somewhere. But if you're in jail, I'd get to see you at one place. Wearing one thing. I'd get to see you wearing the same orange jump suit I saw you wearing the last time I visited. I'd only get to talk to you through a nasty, germy phone." She pauses. "I'd only get to see you through a smudged up piece of glass that you can't even hear anything through. I don't want that, Tori. And I know you don't want it either."

I let a tear fall. I'm so sick of crying. I'm tired of being emotional. I'm tired of feeling sorry for myself when I could easily get up and do something about all this.

"And to tell you the truth, I really don't know how I'd handle that." She chokes out. "I would be without my best friend in the world for years. Maybe not forever, but it would be a minute. Just imagine what that would do to me. Think about Trina. Trina loves you to death, regardless of the way she acts towards you. Think about what that would do to Andre. He's like your brother. Just… don't deprive the world of yourself. Do something to prevent that from happening."

"Let's say I do actually attempt to do something about this. What if it doesn't work out?" I ask. This is a legitimate question. I'm not asking it to be negative.

"Then you went down in a blaze of glory. You went out kicking and screaming; trying to do everything you could possibly do within the legal limits. You just lost the game of black jack. The cards weren't playing for you."

I pause for a moment. This is huge for me. It would be so easy to just say, "no, I'm not doing anything." But I'm not so sure that's what I want to do.

"I'll give you some time to think about this. I know I was a little harsh earlier… I just… I hope you realize what you could be throwing away by doing what you're thinking about doing." She turns around, opens the door, and steps inside. Before shutting it, she says, "Come back to bed whenever you want."

It came as a relief when she revealed to me that she was going to let me have some time to think. Given, there's not much to think about. It's either go to prison or fight to stay out of prison.

It's getting chilly, so I step inside myself. But I don't want to go to bed. So I just go into the living room and sit on the couch. No TV. No music. No light. No nothing.

I'm facing something that could potentially ruin my life. It's insane how fast a life like mine- one that once held so much promise- could crumble like it has been over the couple of weeks. Who knows? Maybe my life does still hold promise. In California, the maximum sentence is ten years. Ten years of my life would be gone. I'd be 33 or 34 by the time I got out.

Behind me, I hear footsteps. I quickly turn around, think they belong to Cat.

"Hey, Cat, I…" I stop. "Oh. Hey, Sam. What are you doing up?"

"I got thirsty so I figured I'd come in here and get something to drink." She opens the fridge and looks up and down in the door. She pulls out a brown glass bottle. I guess it's beer.

"What's that?" I ask.

She takes a big swig. "Barbeque sauce; want some?"

"I think I'll pass." That just grossed me out. I don't think I'll ever want to have barbeque sauce with anything for a pretty good while.

"You know, it's funny." She says. "I came in here to get this because I was thirsty, but now that I drank it, I'm more thirsty than I was before I came in here."

"Uh, probably because that's pure salt. It dries up all the liquid in your body." I say. She looks at me like I'm stupid or something.

"How does that have to do with making me thirsty? When I'm thirsty, it's just because my body wants something wet. Not because all the liquid in my body is gone."

"But… that… that's the same exact thing, just in different words!" I exclaim, trying my best to get my point across.

"I still have spit in my mouth so I can't be completely out of liquids."

"Yes, I know, but…"

She hocks it back, lunges forwards, and spits a big, giant blob of spit out. At this point, I almost can't stand to be around her. This is repulsive.

"Yep, you really did just spit all over my foot." I say, cringing and shuttering.

She shrugs. "Maybe some barbeque sauce would help dry it up?"

I don't even bother to respond to that. After waiting a second and finishing off the barbeque sauce, Sam stands up and begins to walk back to her and Cat's room. But I stop her.

"Wait, Sam. Do you have a minute? I need to ask you for some advice. If you're willing to give it, of course."

Again, she shrugs and slowly trudges back to the couch and sits down beside me. She slaps me on the knee and sits back and relaxes.

"What can I do you for?" She asks.

"Well, first I need to know what all Cat has told you about me." I state.

"She's told me pretty much everything. I know you're going through a lot of stuff right now. What you're going through is worse than anything I've had to go through."

"What have you gone through?" I ask.

"Hmm… Let's see." She thinks for a moment. "'02, assault. '05, shoplifting and assault. '07, '08, and '10, were all misdemeanor assault and battery charges. I had to do a little time in Juvy and a little community service. And then I got caught fooling around in a car about two years back. The cop was weird and let us go without any questions asked. But that's about it."

Fooling around in a car? "So… how was Juvy?" I ask.

"It was okay. The food was alright. They gave us these real comfy pillows and they even gave us a couple of pieces of cardboard to put over the springs on our beds so they wouldn't squeak." She smiles. "They treated us okay there."

"No, I mean, like how were the people? How did they treat you? And did you get to see anyone in there? Like from the outside?"

"Well… my mom is in Seattle, so I haven't seen her in a while anyway. At least I think she's in Seattle. Nevertheless, I didn't see her. Carly couldn't come because she had to keep iCarly going and manage her schoolwork along with regular life. Freddie's mom won't let him within three hundred feet of a place where people are being held because of their bad deeds. She thinks they'll rub off on him. The only real person that came in to see me was Cat." She says. "She's a good friend."

That makes me smile a little bit.

"Don't tell her I said that." She sticks her finger in my face and gives me a stern look.

"Hand to God." I laugh nervously.

She smiles a little and lets the whole thing go. She's just about to stand up and go back to bed, but again, I grab her arm and pull her back down to the couch. Surprisingly, she doesn't huff or complain or… act like Sam Puckett.

"What's up, ya ding?" She asks, sarcastically. There it is.

"Is it worth going to jail if there's even the slightest chance you might be innocent?" I ask.

"Wait, I'm not sure if I get what you're saying."

"Like, if I had an opportunity to prove my innocence, do you think it'd be worth it? I mean, there's always a chance it could work against me and throw me in prison."

"Well here's the way I look at it." Sam becomes very engaged in the conversation. Even though she's mean, nasty, violent, and pushy, she can be a very good listener, and if she's good in the area you're talking about, she can give some good advice, too. "Look at it like this. If you sit and do nothing, you're going to prison anyway, more than likely. Whereas if you make a push to prove you're innocent, you split the chances in half. There's a 50% chance you could go to prison and there's a 50% chance you could be set free. And sometimes the chances are actually good. You just have to dig deep."

"Could I handle jail?" I ask her. She gives me a discouraging look.

"Look, chick… if jail is anything like Juvy, I don't think so. I even had a hard time every now and then in that hell hole. And I'm not afraid to say that I, a strong person, had to fight to keep from being broken in that place."

"So…" I mumble.

"All I'm going to say is that you need to try. You really have to strive to prove your innocence." She pauses for a minute. "I'll even help."

That shocks me. My jaw drops and I really don't know what to say. All I can do is hug her, except this time, she doesn't shove me away. She actually hugs me back.

"Why do you want to help?" I inquire.

"Because of Cat." Because of Cat? "I care about her. And she cares about you just about more than anything. Every now and then, when you guys weren't close anymore, she'd tell me stories over and over again about when you guys were at Hollywood Arts and all the shenanigans you all would get into." She laughs. "Like when she shaved Jade's eyebrows off."

"Oh, that was too good. Jade was furious. She actually shaved Cat's head." I laugh hysterically.

"God, I love that woman." Sam smiles. "But Cat talked about you a lot. You made her very happy. You're still making her happy even though the circumstances suck. So that's why I'm caring. I care about her being happy which means I have to keep you from being put into the big house."

I smile a little bit at how much she cares about Cat. Somebody is actually giving me a run for my money. But that's a good thing. She deserves more than just one person making her happy at a time. More than two, really.

"Just tell me what I need to do and I'll do it. You can always count on Sam Puckett to do her duty as a friend." She jumps up off the couch and starts walking to their room. "Goodnight, Tori."

"Goodnight, Sam."

I made a new friend tonight. Go Tori.

* * *

"Tori, we have to leave in ten minutes!" Cat yells, finishing her makeup.

I stumble out of the bathroom with my dress barely hanging on. I'm pulling my heels on with a bunch of unnecessary force. I almost trip and fall trying to pull them on.

"I know! I'm sorry, I just lost track of time. Are you almost ready?" I pull my dress up to a point where it was secure and there was no way I'd have an embarrassing moment.

"Yeah, I just have to finish curling my hair and touching up my makeup." She says, running a curling iron through her hair. She curls the last part of her hair and grabs a shade of lipstick to put it on her lips. She finishes applying it and pops her lips.

"So what do you think?" She stands up. She's wearing a long, silky red dress that's almost the exact same color as her radiant red hair. She adjusts a few of the curls and smiles.

My god.

"Why aren't you saying anything?" She asks. "Does it look bad? Oh, God, it looks bad. Do I have time to change?" She starts scrambling and runs into her closet.

"No, no, Cat. It looks amazing. Trust me. It's… beyond amazing." I chuckle.

"Well, I guess I had to look amazing for once, you know? I mean, Beck and Jade are probably only going to get engaged once." She says.

Early this morning Andre had texted me to let me know that both Cat and I had been invited to a dinner with Beck and Jade along with the rest of the gang. According to Andre, Jade doesn't even suspect what Beck intends to do. She just thinks it's a regular dinner with her friends. Think again, West.

Beck is going to propose. I find that hard to believe. Not because it's unbelievable; just how far all of us have come since high school… a world where Beck and Jade broke up over dumb things, where Robbie carried around a puppet, where all Beck cared about was cars. We've all changed for the better. The only bad part about it all is where I've ended up.

Hopefully I'll find what Beck and Jade have soon.

Then I turn back to Cat. She blinds me. Her bright white teeth and amazing smile. Her insanely bright red hair.

"Cat, you look amazing." I'm baffled. Truly, I am. I forgot how well she could put herself together.

"Well you don't look so bad yourself there, Tori." She smiles. She steps closer to me and lowers her voice a little. She puts her hands on my arms as if she was trying to hold me still. "Tori, I want this night to go smoothly. I want to have fun. But most importantly, I want you to feel relaxed. I want you to enjoy yourself and not worry about anything that's going on right now. Can you do that for me?" She asks.

I pull her in for a hug. The fact that she cares about me and wants me to have fun; the fact that she felt the need to say all that to me makes me happy. Because she cares about me. She genuinely cares about me. And it makes me happy when people do that stuff for me because I get to take a break. I get to sit for a minute and not be nice to everyone. For once, I can enjoy what I try to give people.

"Yes, Cat. I can do that for you."

"Thank you. Now come on. Let's have a little fun." She exits her room and I follow her lead. Here we go, Tori. Let's do this.

* * *

"Hey!" Beck says as we walk into the front part of the restaurant. He gives Cat a hug and gives me the same treatment. He pulls back and runs a hand through his hair, smiling.

"Hey, Beck. How are you?" I ask.

"Oh, you know… just swell. I'm not freaking out at all right now. And I'm definitely not nervous about asking my girlfriend to marry me, if that's what you're talking about." He starts moving around the room nervously.

"Are you calm or not?" Cat questions.

"Not even remotely calm. I'm freaking the hell out." He answers loudly.

"Would you say you're about to…" I smirk. "Freak the freak out?"

He laughs. There we go. Problem solved. Way to go, Tori. You made someone's day a lot easier by doing what you just did. It wasn't intentional though. I was just making a joke.

Soon enough, everyone else gets there. Andre is the first one to show up. He greets Cat and I with a huge bear hug and gives Beck one of those classic "bro hugs". There's a lot of love there though. They'll always be best friends.

Next, Robbie pops in. Again, he is Rex-less. He says hello and gives us a dorky wave and he even throws a nerdy joke in there. I laugh and prompt Cat to do the same. You know, just to humor the poor guy. Then he tells another one and I just can't humor him more than once.

"So, are you excited for the big moment, fam?" Andre asks Beck after clapping his hands together quietly. Beck smiles nervously and laughs a little.

"I think I've been ready for this for a really, really long time. Personally, I think Jade and I both have. I mean, it's been what, seven years? I think it's time. Don't you guys?" He asks.

"Absolutely." Cat says. "It was time four years ago!"

"Time for what? What did I miss?" Jade asks, walking out of the lady's room. She looks amazing. She looks better than she ever has. She doesn't have all that dark makeup on under her eyes, and she actually took the highlights out of her hair. She looks… like… amazing. I don't know how else to say it.

"Time for what? Are you grunches gonna let me in on it or what?" She snaps.

I see the attitude still stayed.

"Uh…" Andre said. "Cat was just saying… uh…" He rubs the back of his head, nervously. "I CAN'T TALK ABOUT IT." He takes off, running towards the restroom, bumping into people all the way there.

"What's his deal?" Jade asks.

"Well, we were talking about Friends, and Cat said that it had been time to make a reunion episode three years ago." I explain.

"Then what does that have to do with him running off like that?"

"Uh… Matthew Perry really hurt him when he came out with his new show. So he's really emotional." I say.

"Oh." Jade frowns. "That Matthew Perry is one funny man."

As we stand in the lobby of Maestro's, we all suddenly become anxious and ready sit. Although some of us are probably anxious for other reasons.

Soon enough, however, a hostess calls us to be seated and we're all most grateful. He leads us to our regular table at this restaurant: the one right by the window and right in front of the piano. And now we're back in high school. Except now, we're twenty-three years old, two of us are about to be engaged, one is a music producer, and another is facing what is essentially a murder charge.

Tori, you're thinking negatively again. You told Cat you wouldn't do that tonight. Remember? Of course you do. This is a special night; one we'll remember for a long, long time.

"So Beck, how is the career going?" Cat asks.

"It's going okay." He says, modestly, with a big smile on his face. "I actually just signed on to direct Brad Pitt's newest drama movie." Everyone lets out a large gasp.

Andre stands up and says, "I CAN'T TALK ABOUT IT!" He then runs off.

"So does he say that to everything now?" Beck asks.

No one gives a real answer. They just carry on with their conversation and continue to be marveled at the fact that Beck is going to direct Brad Pitt's newest drama movie.

"So you've met the hottest guy known to man, right baby?" Jade asks.

He laughs a little. "You know I, your boyfriend, am right here, correct?" He asks.

"Yes, yes I do." Jade answers. "Answer the question… darling." She says, deviously.

Beck nods, half-depressed. "Yes, I have met the 'sexiest man known to man'." He puts it in air quotes.

"She never said sexy." Cat giggles.

"She just said hottest." I say, giggling also.

"Do you think Brad Pitt is sexy, Beck?" Jade uses her trademarked smirk here, the same way she did the whole way through high school and as long as I've known her.

"I think the man is rather good looking but I… I don't think that…" Our stares become more and more fixed on him. Even Robbie, who has very oddly stayed quiet for the majority of the time, starts staring at Beck to make him feel pressure. "I don't think he's… I CAN'T TALK ABOUT IT!" He runs out of the room as Andre comes back in.

"Hey, he stole my bit." Andre says.

He sits down again, now calm, and begins socializing with us all.

My mind begins to wonder again. It seems to do that more than ever now that everything that has happened is becoming a larger part of my life.

I begin to think that we've gone a pretty good ways through our meal, yet a now call Beck still hasn't popped the question.

I pull my phone out of my purse and select Beck's name to send a text message to.

**"****When are you going to do it?"**

I see him reach into his coat pocket and pull out his blue pear phone. He laughs a little and starts typing. The little typing bubble pops up on my screen.

**"****Very soon. Brace yourselves."**

I look across the table at him to see a big smile on his face. I then show Cat the phone. She takes it from me and shows Robbie who is sitting beside her, then I take it back and show Andre. They all smile.

"What are you all smiling at?" Jade asks. "What are you all smiling at and why aren't you showing me?" She starts freaking out.

"Oh, it's nothing." Andre says, trying not to laugh.

"Beck, what are they laughing at?" She grits her teeth.

"I'm just as clueless as you are babe." He says, coolly. Typical Beck… always cool under pressure. Unless talked to about Brad Pitt and his amazing manly beauty.

"Beck, tell me, or no sex for a month…" She threatens.

"Tell her. Tell her now." He says quickly.

I laugh at that and come up with a devious plan. "We're just smiling at this old lady on a bicycle. She ran over a huge rock and then she flipped over the handle bars and fell right on her face!" We all start laughing as the rest of the group knows what I'm trying to do.

"Was there pain involved?" She's almost shaking.

"So much. So… so much pain was involved." I laugh.

"NO!" She screams. "NO! I LOVE PAIN! YOU HAVE TO LET ME SEE IT!" She bangs her hands on the table.

Everyone looks at her. She smiles at them all and instantly calms down. She sits in her chair and then returns to looking at everyone with a death stare. Her words are at a normal level now.

"Let me see it or I'll make your lives painful." Too late. Mine already is but whatever.

"You really want to see it?" Cat asks.

"Yes, you know I love to see people in agony." She says.

"Are you sure you want to see this?" Andre smiles.

"Yes, damn it, how many times do I have to say it?" She exclaims.

"Turn around then." Beck says from behind her.

"Why would I…" She stops. Dead. She just stops moving. She stops talking. And it even looks like she stopped breathing.

Everyone who was shocked at her behavior a moment ago is now watching Beck, who has a small box with a rather large ring in it, down on one knee. He's smiling ear to ear. Jade sits there, simply, with her jaw on the floor.

"Beck… oh my God." She breathes. Her hand covers her mouth and her eyes begin to tear up.

"Jade, ever since I've known you, you've made me happy. You've made me sad. You've made me angry. You've picked me up when I was at my lowest. Sometimes you actually put me at my lowest. But I wouldn't change any of that because without it all, we wouldn't be in this exact moment. We could've experienced some of these things, but something would be different. We wouldn't feel as we do right now if some of those things hadn't happened. I love you. And there's nothing I'd rather be doing, no where I'd rather be, than on my knee, right now, in front of you, our friends and all of this other people asking you to marry me."

Cat puts her arm around me and pulls me close to her. I smile even more at that. Her embrace feels natural; comfortable.

Andre is tearing up at the sight of his best friend becoming a true man. And Robbie is simply smiling.

"So, Jade West, my girlfriend and the love of my life, would do me the extreme honor of becoming Jade Oliver, my wife?" He asks with a tear in his eye.

I've never seen Jade look like she does except a few times. Completely vulnerable.

She nods. "Yes. God, yes." She stands up and kisses her soon-to-be husband. Beck wraps her up in a hug and holds her for a good while before letting go.

Andre stands up and shakes Beck's hand and gives him one of the quintessential guy hugs. Robbie does the same. I even give Jade a hug. It's that big of a moment for everyone. They're going to start a life together and a family together. That's just insane to think about.

We all calm down and have a fun time the rest of the night. But by the time everyone is done eating, we're all tired and full, so we're ready to go. Beck generously offered to pay the check, but Andre insists on paying at least half.

On the way out, Jade pulls me by the arm and beckons me to talk to her. She's probably mad about the video I lied about.

"Hey, Cat, I'll be right there." I yell after her.

Jade pulls me back near the door of Maestro's, and stays quiet for a minute.

"There wasn't a video of a woman falling on her face, was there?" She asks.

"No." I say.

"Damn it." We both giggle a little bit. She looks down at her finger and plays with her wedding ring. She smiles a little while she's at it. She looks up at me and copies Cat. She opens her mouth and doesn't say anything.

"Everything okay?"

"It couldn't be better. I have what I've wanted ever since I was eight years old. I'm gonna get married. And it's the… best feeling I've ever felt, knowing that I'm marrying the man I want to share my life with. And it's comforting knowing that he wants me for me. All my perks, my quirks. Everything. It's amazing. Best day of my life, actually."

She looks up at me with tears in her eyes.

"Jade, what's the matter?" I ask, genuinely concerned.

She sniffs and wipes her eye.

"Vega, you're… you know what, no… Tori, you're my best friend. I can't tell you how much I mean that. From the bottom of my cold, dark, bitter heart, I mean that. I've treated you like garbage the entire time we've known each other. And you've done nothing but cater to me and be a friend."

"Jade, you haven't been that bad to me." I say.

"Tori, I poured coffee on your head on your very first day at Hollywood Arts. I put makeup on my eye to make people think you actually hit me. And you have no clue how sorry I am for all of that."

"Hey, it's fine." I smile and giggle a little. "You don't have to apologize to me about that. It's okay. That stuff is ancient history. We're living in the now. And with everything that's going on in your life, there's no other place we should want to live than the here and now. And you also need to plan for the future. The amazing future with your amazing fiancé."

"You always did know what to say." She laughs and looks down. Then she looks me in the eye. "Thank you for being here for me. I honestly don't know what I would've done without all of your invaluable advice over the past seven years or so." She leans in to hug me and I gladly return the favor.

"It'll always be there." I whisper. She squeezes tighter and then lets go.

Her smirk is back. Crap.

"So… I have a question." Jade says.

"Oh, dear God, what is it? I know that smirk."

"What? I just don't know when you're going to make a move on Cat."

What the hell? Where did that come from?

"Cat? Why would I make a move on Cat?" I ask. "She's my best friend."

"Oh, come on, Tori. It's obvious you two have a thing for each other. I saw you guys in the restaurant. I mean, she practically draped you over her. At one point, I even saw her close her eyes and smile when you were that close to her." She says. "It's painfully obvious."

"Jade, no… no. I couldn't ever do anything with her. I like guys. You know this." I say.

She throws her hands up in the air. "I'm just saying that it's what it looks like."

"That was just an out of left field question."

"I know. But…" She trails off. "Look, I'm about to tell you something. And it stays between us. But Cat had a crush on you in High School. Like… a major one. She had all of your pictures developed and framed. She kept all the things you ever gave her in a box in her closet. And… a day or so ago, she texted me and told me that those feelings- even after the short time you guys had been close again- had come back."

This is a complete shock. Cat Valentine has a crush on me? Cat Valentine had a crush on me all throughout High School? No, no, no. This just can't be. Cat can't have a crush on me. I mean, I'm me. How could she have a crush on this wreck?

"I'm only going to say one thing. You know Cat almost as well as anyone in the world. And you know she's trustworthy if you need her to be. She'll never break a promise. She'll never hurt your feelings intentionally. She'll stand up for you and take your side when you're in the right and when someone else is in the wrong. She's the type that helps you up when you're down and the type that will pull you down if you get too high on yourself. You know all this stuff about her. All I ask of you is that you think about giving Cat a chance." She says. She genuinely cares about this. It's a nice quality I didn't know she had.

She steps closer to me.

"Tori, you don't know everything about Cat. She's very breakable and very vulnerable. She's constantly vulnerable. She's like a trap door. If you take one wrong step, she caves in. And I know that if you gave her a chance, you wouldn't take a wrong step." She steps back again. "You're a good person. And Cat doesn't have many of those in her life. You'd be good for her."

I nod. "Well… let me just… ponder this topic and I'll uh… let you know when I've come to a conclusion."

"Okay… thank you so much for coming tonight. It was great seeing you, Tori." She gives me one last hug and a quick kiss on the cheek as friends do, and walks to Beck's car.

I take a deep breath. How in the world am I going to face Cat? How am I going to be able to lay in the same bed as her tonight knowing how she feels?

I then put one foot in front of the other and take the steps to Cat's little car. As I approach the door, I hear a small click signaling that the doors have unlocked. I open it and awkwardly step into the car.

"Hey, what did Jade want?" She asks.

"Oh, nothing. She was just telling me how much she appreciated my friendship. She apologized, finally, for pouring coffee on my head on my very first day." I answer.

"Oh, well that's great!" She says, pulling her car onto the road. "Anything else?"

I contemplate telling her what I heard from Jade about the past six or seven years, but I decide against it, as it would just make things more awkward than they already are in our lives.

"Nope. It was just her making amends with me." I change the subject. "Did you have fun tonight?"

"I had a blast." She grabs my hand and starts holding it. Oh, God here we go. Tori, don't freak out. "It was just amazing seeing Beck and Jade take the next step in their lives; the step they should've taken a long time ago." She smiles. "The step I want to take someday."

Her grip tightens on my hand. And next, I find myself doing something I didn't think would happen: I start gripping her hand tighter, too.

"I'm glad we're getting close again, Tori." She says.

"Yeah…" I pause. "Me too, Cat. Me too." Again, my grip tightens.

What's going on right now? It's almost as if Jade flipped a switch. I see what she's talking about. She's kinda great.

Jesus, what have I gotten myself into?

**A/N: This was definitely my longest chapter I've ever written. This was even longer than my oneshot I did recently. And I also think it was one of my best. But hey, it doesn't matter what I think. It matters what YOU think. So review this. Or don't. But you'd make me happy if you did. **

**ALSO! Tori and Cat are kinda having some moments now. Dust is being kicked up by who else but Jade? But this is good dust this time. How soon will it take and what will they have to do to become what they are destined to be?**


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